The real problem that Elastic doesn't like is that amazon reimplements features as part of their core offering that ES tries to charge for. I'm sure they would have no problem contributing back but Elastic doesn't want these features to become part of the core offering.

This sounds like the Docker Inc and Red Hat dance again. Red Hat wanted tighter integration with systemd, Docker Inc not. The debate ended with Red Hat doing:

  alias docker=podman

That's not the only reason, docker has a daemon running as root and requires "sudo", podman does not.

Rootless docker exists nowadays FWIW

One of the debates ended. But since it's not a complete replacement, or started some more debates.

> I'm sure they would have no problem contributing back

Why the heck would you feel sure of that? What evidence makes you think anything in Amazon's DNA would go in that direction? Amazon is blatantly missing from every open source conversation or ecosystem I've ever encountered. They give essentially NOTHING back except cheap infra as a service, and we pay dearly for it with the losses we get from their predatory behaviour toward any competing products

I use Amazon. But they're garbage for ecosystems.

imho Amazon is only good for Amazon (in the larger timescale), and maybe also for finding whatever economic McGuffin lies at the bottom of whatever race they happen to be in.

Amazon literally started an open source distribution of elastic search and kibana in 2019, one that has been adopted and contributed to by other companies and clouds because it includes feature that are only in the commercial variant of elastic’s offerings. This fact is included in elastic’s blog post as a third party contributed a plug-in to Amazon’s version that Elastic believes copied source code from their commercial product.

The existence and usage of “Open Distro for Elasticsearch” is not debatable. Whether it infringes trademarks is in court and whether a third party infringed elastic’s copyrights is also in court.

Sorry, I was a little too indignant there. Apologies.

But also, that's contributing "out", not contributing "back". It's the difference between working with your neighbours, vs leaving your extra shit around your house on the curb for someone else to take.

The mechanics of how they relate to the groups from which they filter wealth, that matters imho.

When I get frustrated about how they don't really contribute, it's that I'm intensely cynical about the worldview from which their offerings come.

Anyhow, thanks for the generous comment, and the chance to reflect :)

Yeah, elasticsearch making security a paid add on (with no "free" usage level) was a huge misstep in my opinion.

I wonder if Shay regrets that decision in hindsight.