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Comment by __blockcipher__ | Hacker News Reader

There is nothing wrong with what Amazon is doing ethically. They're creating value for their customers, and releasing open source software while doing so. Indeed it's Elastic who tried to get all the positives of open source with none of the negatives (as evidenced by them making Elasticsearch/Kibana no longer open source)

BTW, not that it's super relevant but the narrative that Amazon is driving Elastic bankrupt is farcical. Elastic pulls in $500MM in revenue and is valued at $15B+. Elastic's doing fine.

Note: One thing Amazon did do that was unethical was claim that they had "collaborated with Elastic" when they announced AWS Elasticsearch long ago. That is indefensible. But there is nothing wrong with them forking.

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It is absolutely possible that something legal can still be ethically unacceptable.

This is an instance where people believe that it is ethically unacceptable for Amazon to do what they've been doing, so strongly that they are relicensing open source software to prohibit Amazon from continuing to benefit from their work on it.

Ethics are not as simple as law, especially in technology, and very especially in open source licensing.

This is about a for profit corporation making more money, not ethics.

If there’s been any breach of ethics, it’s Elastic’s license change in the first place which was completely contrary to the spirit and intent of open source.

Perhaps you don’t agree. That’s fine, but let’s not assume this is consensus and that Elasic, Inc. is all about having the highest of ideals. From my POV, They’re panicked about a business model.

> This is an instance where people believe that it is ethically unacceptable for Amazon to do what they've been doing, so strongly that they are relicensing open source software to prohibit Amazon from continuing to benefit from their work on it.

Elastic isn't the saint here, they aren't doing this to "Double Down On Open Source" as they claim. They're simply doing it so they can squeeze the hell out of the SAAS market by betraying their promises to the community and contributors.

> It is absolutely possible that something legal can still be ethically unacceptable.

I didn't say that wasn't the case.

I specifically made this claim:

It is not just legal for Amazon to do this, but it is also ethical. They are contributing value, not just to their paying customers but to the whole FOSS community. That's a moral good under my framework. You may have a different ethical framework; that's fine.

what value did they contribute? the 9 shitty PRs? A rich person going to the British Museum and leaving a 1£ donation is ethically unacceptable in my book.

>> There is something wrong in what amazon is doing. Not legally, but morally.

> There is nothing wrong with what Amazon is doing ethically.

You're responding to something he didn't say, and it's telling. He was referring to morals; you're talking about ethics. There's a difference, and it matters. MOST of the discussion on this issue seems to miss this distinction, and what the difference implies, and that's telling too.

As someone else pointed out above, Amazon owes the entirety of it's BAZILLION-dollar AWS business to open source. You'd think they could find it in their hearts to acquiesce to a simple request that they not muddy the waters around Elastic's registered trademark. That was immoral. Everything else that has now followed, whether legal or ethical, is based on an immorality.

> Elastic pulls in $500MM in revenue

Not taking sides, but for comparison, Amazon makes that much revenue every 12 hours.

Bad comparison, Amazon does much more than Elastic. How much does the Amazon Elasticsearch product bring in? That's what actually matters here.

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