> The question was not "would it be FOSS". The question is whether you can have the benefits of FOSS, or as much of them as possible.

And it is in the best interests of FOSS to make it clear, time and time again, that the answer is no, and to work to ensure the answer is no.

This is exactly the framing/idea I am going for.

Honestly it seems like the only downside there would be all the OSS purist/billionaire-defender HN commenters would have a field day, then you could move on.

One of the key benefits of FOSS is that if I don’t want to (or am not capable to) do something with the software, I can pay someone to do that part for me. Maybe that’s fix a bug, extend/modify the software, or maybe it’s operate and host it for me.

I’d like to choose AWS to do this hosting in a lot of cases, assuming they’re willing. Barring them from hosting it is impinging on my freedom as a user and therefore with respect to whether I think that software is Free and Open.

That’s the exact freedom that Elastic is trying to remove here, for their own (totally valid) business reasons (they don’t want to compete head-to-head with AWS hosting), but in so doing, they’re removing an essential freedom from users. This is not about defending billionaires; it’s about having choice in the use of the software purporting to be free and open.

I don't think they want to stop you from doing those things, and hiring out to do that, I think they want it to not be offered as a prepackaged product.

So it's a reduction in freedom, but it's not a reduction in user freedom.

Those are just differences in timing and system efficiency. In one view, RHEL is a pre-packaged product. In another view, it’s a bunch of users outsourcing a portion of FOSS management to an expert company because they don’t want to do it.

I don't think I understand your argument. Even if it is just timing and efficiency (I'd argue it's a few other things too), wouldn't that mean it's not just a matter of perspective?

Fair. I retract “just” as I agree it’s a few other things, but in one world, I can contract out my Linux packaging to Redhat or my Elasticsearch hosting to Amazon and in another world I can’t. I think that’s a significant difference in freedom to me, as the user/potential user.

“You have the freedom to contract for help with our software with this company but not that company” or “you have the freedom to contract for hosting in inefficient arrangements that we can beat in competition but not in efficient ways that we’d rather not compete against”.