The dispute between Elastic and AWS over open source protocols has escalated.

On January 15, Elastic announced on its website that Elasticsearch and Kibana will be licensed under the SSPL (Server Public License) instead of Apache 2.0.

Shay Banon, Elastic’s chief executive, said: “The main reason for this decision is to stop the cloud vendors from whomping.”

In an official statement, Elastic says the changes ensure that their community and customers are free and open to use, modify, redistribute and collaborate with their code. It also protects cloud service providers’ continued investment in developing free and open products by limiting their ability to offer Elasticsearch and Kibana as a service to users without feedback.

AWS, on behalf of cloud vendors, is the first to say that Elastic is undermining the very definition of open source, AWS will step up efforts to create and maintain branches licensed under the Apache License Version 2.0 (ALv2) by the open source Elasticsearch and Kibana.

1. Why did Elastic change the open source protocol?

After computer technology enters the cloud era, the dispute with cloud platform becomes an unavoidable problem for open source software business.

The reason behind this is that cloud vendors are in direct competition with these companies by packaging these products for cloud-based SaaS services, diverting funds that could have been reinvested in the products to the detriment of users and communities. Companies like MongoDB, Redis Labs, and Confluent have had to change their licenses from open source licenses to stricter terms that limit the functionality of their software in order to prevent competition.

While each open source company has taken a different approach to addressing this problem, they have generally modified their open source licenses to protect their investment in free software, while striving to maintain the principles of openness, transparency, and collaboration. Similarly, Elastic makes specific changes to their source code in a licensed way.

II. Doubt from cloud vendors

While Elastic says the change won’t affect the vast majority of users, it’s a “departure from the open source path” in some ways.

“Elastic’s claim that SSPL is’ free and open ‘is misleading and false,” AWS said in its open letter released today. They are trying to claim the benefits of open source while undermining the very definition of open source itself.”

SSPL is a non-open source license, but some of its Settings make it look more like an open source license, which blurs the line between the two.

Another big reason AWS has raised its doubts is that “Elastic promised open source back in April 2018 when it mixed its proprietary licensed software with ALv2 code, but now ‘the situation has changed.'”

AWS also points out that Elastic is trying to build a bigger business by limiting the license to prevent others from hosting Elasticsearch services. While Elastic has the right to change its license, it should not reverse its previous commitment.

3. Elastic Users: Where Are They Going?

AWS’s skepticism about Elastic dates back to March 2019. AWS announced the public release of Elasticsearch at that time. However, this version is not supported by all members of the community. While AWS says it is releasing a public release to ensure ElasticSearch remains fully open source, the rest of the tech community has largely expressed reservations about it.

Sharone Zitzman, head of developer relations at AppsFlyer, criticized the way AWS announced its decision at the time. She said:

Advocating open source to a dynamic open source company that is deeply rooted in OSS values — a company that is completely transparent about its need to make money and maintain a first-class product, and making dubious claims about its reliability is highly hypocritical. This is Amazon seeing someone else’s shiny toy and wanting to get it. This is called a bifurcation.

Adam Jacob, chief technology officer of Chef, sees the move by AWS as a positive move for open source software in general. The main winner, he explained, was the values of free software:

I’m 100 percent sure: this is not a failure of open source. This is the deepest, most fundamental truth about open source and free software. You, as a user, have the power. These rights extend to everyone, including AWS — or they wouldn’t exist at all.

We don’t know what Elastic’s community members and users of the open source community will think and choose this time around.