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Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by pjc50 on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:03AM (#25834762)
This is almost, but not quite, the "Tivoization" that prompted the creation of the GPL3.

The requirement to give something back and/or avoid taking profit from the work of others is something the OSS world has a complicated relationship to. GPL is quite clear that there's a requirement to pass on source changes, if not explicitly to give them back, and many people were outraged by even this limited requirement and instead chose licenses which imposed no requirements at all.

Similarly, people want their work to be used for free by everyone .. but haven't really considered that this results in them working for the Bezos fortune, for free. Or the US military, for free.

There aren't simple clear answers to these questions, only a slowly evolving discussion.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by StavrosK on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:07AM (#25834811)
> There aren't simple clear answers to these questions, only a slowly evolving discussion.

Certainly, and I think that if we want OSS to thrive we need to move towards a future where it's easy for companies to make a return on their investment by releasing OSS. I think Amazon and all the "I provide your software as a service" providers eat into that and hinder that future.

Yes, GPLv3 was meant to fight Tivoization, but it never anticipated providers providing services on an OSS product without contributing significantly, in combination with the companies that develop the OSS hoping to make money off the same hosted service that the former undercuts.

Basically, monetization strategies for OSS are few, and one that is beneficial for both the company and the consumer is providing hosted services. A third company that doesn't have to develop the software is usually a good enough competitor, but since the developer has the obvious support/knowledge advantage, they can still compete. This breaks down when Amazon comes in with its lock-in advantage and sucsk all the money away from the developer.

This is why we're seeing these new licenses, because there's no way currently to be "OSS except Amazon". I think we do need to figure out some way.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by jabl on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @04:25PM (#25839079)
> Yes, GPLv3 was meant to fight Tivoization, but it never anticipated providers providing services on an OSS product without contributing significantly

Well, the so-called "service provider loophole" was certainly well-known when GPLv3 was drafted. That's why AGPLv2 was created some years prior. IIRC early GPLv3 drafts contained AGPL-style language, but several of the companies involved in the GPLv3 drafting process (such as Google) objected, and those clauses were withdrawn from the final GPLv3.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by SpicyLemonZest on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:32AM (#25835139)
But imagine where we'd be if this discussion had happened 30 years ago, in the days when the monetization model was charging a distribution fee. How much of the modern Internet would have had to be excluded from free software licensing to protect that? I have no issue with tweaking OSS licenses to respond to the circumstances of the times, but tweaking them in order to ensure I can make lots of money seems anti-competitive and anti-innovative.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by StavrosK on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:36AM (#25835181)
I agree, but I think it's generally "tweaking the rules so they can stay alive" at this point, ie not about increasing an already big revenue stream.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by SpicyLemonZest on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:44AM (#25835272)
That's certainly what it looks like Elastic is trying to imply, but their revenue was over $400 million last year.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by toomuchtodo on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @12:40PM (#25836125)
For comparison, AWS does about $40B/year in revenue.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by fakedang on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:32AM (#25835133)
I believe in a previous thread, someone suggested OSS except companies having this much of a revenue (since market cap is a bit of a variable metric). Why wouldn't that be a viable model?
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by lacker on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @12:56PM (#25836383)
I wouldn't use software like that. Imagine you build a company using some software, and it was free until you hit $X in revenue. One day far down the road, your company is doing well and you start to get close to $X. You realize you have to acquire a license, ask them for one, and now... you just have to pay whatever they ask for? You're locked in to someone who could quote you whatever price they want. Unless it's really easy to rip out this software, it seems like a huge pain.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by StavrosK on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:37AM (#25835190)
I would love that, and think it's a great model (basically "you don't have to pay us if/while you aren't making money from this"), but as far as I understand it, it's hard to enforce. Amazon can just make a subsidiary that makes less than that amount (or no money at all) and skirt that requirement.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by pydry on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @02:27PM (#25837663)
Easy to work around with "hollywood accounting". Amazon could license the software from a shell company they own that makes very little revenue.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by SpicyLemonZest on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:42AM (#25835251)
It would be a much stronger restriction than they're looking for. If no developer at Amazon, Google, etc. is allowed to even use Elasticsearch, that severely impairs the viability of the project. (Depending on the revenue threshold, it could end up being a problem for Elastic too - they're not exactly a small company.)
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by ABeeSea on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:13AM (#25834869)
> many people were outraged by even this limited requirement

It isn’t a limited requirements. There is a very real legal risk that using GPL software in an enterprise code base means you have to open source of your entire code base. That is an unacceptable risk for almost any business so GPL software doesn’t get used.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by 35fbe7d3d5b9 on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:33AM (#25835151)
> That is an unacceptable risk for almost any business so GPL software doesn’t get used.

And this, right there, is how MySQL AB was purchased for a billion dollars in 2008: you dual-license your software. Release it under a copyleft license that bigco's don't want to touch (AGPL3 is tempting today!), and offer a commercial license that gives your customers the freedom to use it as they need.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by pjc50 on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @04:22PM (#25839052)
Well .. yes. That's the license fee. If you incorporate Oracle code or Nintendo characters in your software you'll get sued as well. So no you can't use GPLd libraries without contributing forward. This is intentional and the purpose of copyleft.

GPL allows you to "use" but not "make derived works".

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by ABeeSea on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @04:33PM (#25839164)
And most companies have decided that the fee of opening their entire code base to use a single GPL library isn’t worth it. That is heft license fee if you have invested billions into creating your company’s source code.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by lacker on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @12:58PM (#25836403)
That is an unacceptable risk for almost any business so GPL software doesn’t get used.

Plenty of companies use Linux... this seems like something people worried about in the 90's but have now generally accepted.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by ABeeSea on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @03:18PM (#25838327)
Linux system libraries are released under Lesser GPL and/or have exemptions for linking that the general GPL does not have. I worked at $bigtechco$ and anything GPL/AGPL was expressly forbidden by the lawyers.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by lmm on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @12:57AM (#25843007)
This is FUD. The worst case for GPL software is that you're not complying with the license and you're liable for statutory damages for copyright infringement. Not coincidentally that's also the worst case for every other license, including BSD/MIT, commercial proprietary licenses, and everything in between.

You're sadly right that many big enterprises purport to believe there's some special extra risk unique to the GPL, but you're wrong to say it's a "very real legal risk"; there's no reasonable basis for believing that at all.

Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by Blackthorn on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:34AM (#25835164)
So the companies can simply buy an alternate licence. What's the problem? They end up giving back in terms of $$$ then.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by warkdarrior on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:59AM (#25835497)
Some projects do not offer alternate/dual licensing.
Re:Amazon: Not OK – Why we had to change Elastic licensing by pydry on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @02:32PM (#25837738)
I'm pretty sure a lot of projects would be open to doing it if offered $$$.