I have no affection for Elastic Co, but why should they sit there and let Amazon eat their lunch?
Maybe I’m forgetting something but I can’t think of a single significant open source project created by Amazon. As far as I can tell they prefer to keep their differentiating services proprietary to their platform. That’s about as far from open source as you can get.
There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but I do think it’s pretty rich that they’re going to try to claim the high road in a dispute with a company that actually has created something as useful as Elasticsearch and released it as open source (with caveats, yes). It’s pretty easy to be high and mighty about open source when you’re on the taking side.
It seems to me that if companies like Elastic can’t defend their ability to make a profit from companies like Amazon there’s a good chance we’re all going to miss out. I think it’s pretty obvious that Amazon’s not going to create the next Elasticsearch and release it as open source.
The reason Amazon is eating Elastic's lunch though, is because Elastic offered a eat-all-you-want buffet, a decision that was applauded by people who think food should be mostly free, but they didn't expect a guest to arrive who had unlimited appetite.
They asked the guy: please sir, would you care to have just one last serving of rib-eye and then we'll offer coffee and desert and then perhaps you could leave? But they didn't leave. They just grabbed another plate full of rib-eye and told the desert people to stand down, stand by.
On the one hand you have someone who tried to make an offer nobody could refuse. On the other hand you have someone who tried to take advantage of that offer to its capacity.
If Amazon had been a small operator, perhaps even a startup, HN would be completely and 100% on their side.
Software costs nothing to duplicate, Amazon isn't taking advantage of ESs resources (as someone losing food might). It's leveraging it's own resources, which it created at substantial cost.
People look at the money Amazon is making with ES, as if it's making money off ES, rather than off ES & AWS. The money Amazon would otherwise leave on the table wouldn't necessarily go to ES, I doubt ES has an claim to being worse off. It's "unlimited" service usage taps markets that might be out of reach for ES otherwise.
Maybe I’m forgetting something but I can’t think of a single significant open source project created by Amazon. As far as I can tell they prefer to keep their differentiating services proprietary to their platform. That’s about as far from open source as you can get.
There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but I do think it’s pretty rich that they’re going to try to claim the high road in a dispute with a company that actually has created something as useful as Elasticsearch and released it as open source (with caveats, yes). It’s pretty easy to be high and mighty about open source when you’re on the taking side.
It seems to me that if companies like Elastic can’t defend their ability to make a profit from companies like Amazon there’s a good chance we’re all going to miss out. I think it’s pretty obvious that Amazon’s not going to create the next Elasticsearch and release it as open source.