Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch
Because I'm good at stirring up trouble. https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/opensearch-aws-rolls-out-its -open-source-elasticsearch-fork/ As you may know, AWS have forked the last FOSS Elasticsearch (7.10 I think). They've announced that they're calling it OpenSearch. It's still only in alpha stage and they won't have a production-ready release for months yet, but it is interesting to keep notes on. Elastic are responsible for the vast majority of commits in Elasticsearch, so I'm somewhat skeptical about a fork, but I think there is a lot of anger at Elastic and a lot of support for OpenSearch, so who knows. I don't think there's anything to do at this stage, but just wanted to share the information for people David Cook Software Engineer Prosentient Systems Suite 7.03 6a Glen St Milsons Point NSW 2061 Australia Office: 02 9212 0899 Online: 02 8005 0595
Hi :) On 21-04-16 02:23, dcook@prosentient.com.au wrote:
Because I’m good at stirring up trouble…
XD
AWS have forked the last FOSS Elasticsearch (7.10 I think)
Hopefully AWS won't be the only one doing all the work and having all the control. (Red Hat, SAP, Capital One, CrateDB, Aiven and Logz.io are said to be part of it)
They’ve announced that they’re calling it OpenSearch. It’s still only in alpha stage and they won’t have a production-ready release for months yet, but it is interesting to keep notes on.
Great news to see this moving. Because the topic will come in the future. Since ES isn't libre/open source anymore, ES even acknowledges that. https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing#what-is-sspl-and-how-does-it-wo... There is a lot written stuff and contradictory analysis on the topic. But regardless of what the ES FAQ and blog posts says. **Is there a reliable legal analysis on the license text?** The closest thing I have found so far is this one: https://anonymoushash.vmbrasseur.com/2021/01/14/elasticsearch-and-kibana-are... Found also people dismissing it as FUD but without contradictory legal analysis. The key question are: Is Koha legally usable with SSPL ES? Is it's affected by it's copyleft clause? (up) Same question for the underlying components used to run ES. (down)
Elastic are responsible for the vast majority of commits in Elasticsearch, so I’m somewhat skeptical about a fork, but I think there is a lot of anger at Elastic and a lot of support for OpenSearch, so who knows.
The last libre version of ES is pretty great as it is. Not having the fastest possible development on OpenSearch won't take away that.
I don’t think there’s anything to do at this stage, but just wanted to share the information for people
+1, thanks. -- Victor Grousset/tuxayo
Hi :) Found another legal analysis that contradicts the first one: https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/20/Righteous-Expedient-Wrong.html Even if contradictory, that still helps to understand the situation. Divergence still means something about the eventual risks. Some thoughts after reading: "SaaS capture”, “Amazon problem”, “Google problem” are legitimate concerns. But this controversy shows how hard it is to address it. Even if the copyleft doesn't affect Koha. It seems clear that it affects management services (what is the extent of that?). So what about if a hosting management tool is under a copyleft license? IIUC it can't be released under the SSPL. So that would force to only use permissive licensed management tools. So it's not a legal blocker but that restrict possibilities. And actually leads to a loss of freedom on these tools because copyleft software help about that. Some non-Koha thoughts: 1. Does having the hosting management tools of Amazon or Google or Microsoft would really help not them having a quasi monopolistic share on the hosting of databases et other tools? (public interest PoV) Well actually it's to have them buy the version with the other license. 2. Do ElasticSearch actually lacks money to maintain the same level of work on the ES stack and give the investors a reasonable return of investment? (accounting that it was a risky one so the return should be more than the average) As for the second part, there is actually no limit on the ROI (imagine if loans worked like that, lol), especially with venture capital. So there can be doubt on the legitimacy of the additional need of revenue. Cheers, -- Victor Grousset/tuxayo
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dcook＠prosentient.com.au -
Victor Grousset/tuxayo