Comment by manigandham
4 years ago
No, I never said any that and it makes no sense.
OSS doesn't have anything to do with business models. Anyone can create open-source software and many do. The whole point is that it's free to create, see and modify. Some companies choose business models which include open-source software, and that comes with advantages (increased popularity and growth) and disadvantages (free usage, forks of codebase).
The reality though is that tech has changed and customers don't want to buy software, they want services now. ES has been slow to offer this, and they still offer it poorly, which is why AWS and other companies have filled in the gap. This is how business competition works.
Please answer these questions: Do you have a problem with the other companies (which are smaller than Elastic) that offer managed elasticsearch? Do you have a problem with multiple companies offering hosted Wordpress? Do you have a problem with any company that sells software or services that use open-source components?
I hear you. This is a valid argument. But I see it both ways. I will offer an open-source and get something else in return. My problem is, Amazon is a taker and it's getting greedy and not giving back. So do you think it is legal? Yes, it is. Is it ethical? No. You are rooting for the big guy, many people do. I simply care about the collective good of the industry and I am for the open-source. Just because you can, it doesn't mean you should.
I find it perfectly ethical to offer a service to customers based on open-source software. Again, nothing prevented ES from doing this for years, or sticking to only making proprietary addons. And again, there are several other companies offering the same services and many startups have built massive businesses on various open-source components.
Forks are a celebrated part of OSS and we only have more choice as customers now. The industry is better than ever. You keep ignoring these facts so at this point it's clear that you just have a personal bias against Amazon rather than a cohesive argument regarding OSS.