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The third wave of open source software is no software at all. It is only a matter of time before Amazon doesn't care whether it's licensed Apache2 or not. They

by okram 6y ago

The third wave of open source software is no software at all. It is only a matter of time before Amazon doesn't care whether it's licensed Apache2 or not. They will just take software and sell it. You have a problem with that? Have fun suing them... Year 1..2..3..oooo. you are quite the fish..4..5. broke. Out of money. Tech is dead.

okram 6y ago
Ha. The two comments that critique Amazon got down voted with negative points. Does Amazon have cronies patrolling Hacker News to squash dissidents?
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Me too I realized that criticism towards AWS brings downvotes on HN. A bit strange because it's usually the opposite online. Maybe a lot of HN readers are working for AWS.
- wisnesky 6y ago
  You must be referring to the "love-hate" relationship between Amazon and open source software as described eg here? https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-and-commercial-open-source-in-the-cloud-its-complicated/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-and-commercial-open-sou... "Vendors developing those open source products started accusing AWS of strip mining, i.e., reaping the benefits of the products, without contributing back to their development."
  - pabs3 6y ago
    I hate to defend Amazon, but it seems that they do contribute back to open source: https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/ https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/ For example running `git shortlog -ne` in the Linux kernel git repository will show a number of Amazon folks with many commits to their name.
    - redis_mlc 6y ago
      Linux contributions are not the best example, since it's GPL, and you pretty much have to contribute back to get your changes mainlined, and end-users can request your changes at any time. Now, if they contributed back to FreeBSD, that would be meaningful, since they don't have to.
      - pabs3 6y ago
        Amazon doesn't distribute Linux on server hardware (just consumer hardware like the Kindle) so they don't have to give back for server aspects of Linux like KVM, yet in the Linux kernel code, the Amazon employees are mostly submitting patches for things like KVM, not for Kindle hardware support. It would surprise me if Amazon use FreeBSD, I thought they use Xen & Linux KVM exclusively?
        _msw_ 6y ago
        Disclosure: I work for AWS. See https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/1211125881264934917 https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/1211125881264934917 for one example of working with FreeBSD. It's truly awesome that I can send an email to Amazon saying "we're seeing an odd performance issue here" and get back "here's a FreeBSD kernel patch I just wrote which provides a 10% performance boost". And people claim that Amazon never contributes back to open source... I linked the patches here. Not all of the work is from an AWS engineer: https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1220088310443307008 https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1220088310443307008 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23322 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23323 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23324 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23325
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      Those are not the same open source projects. When Amazon strip mines and destroys some projects, I don't think that's any better just because they need and do changes in the kernel
      - pabs3 6y ago
- 1337shadow 6y ago
  If that was the case, would they have to be many, or just one with a script and a catchall mailbox ?
  - okram 6y ago
    They are probably using some free OSS script.
- BubRoss 6y ago
  You posted a borderline incoherent rant of nonsense, what did you expect?
speedgoose 6y ago
I'm probably naive but I don't think you need that much money to sue AWS. They may afford an army of lawyers, but that's their problem. You can't buy a judge as far as I know.
- okram 6y ago
  The ElasticSearch lawsuit is still ongoing. 5 years later. They are "quite the fish."
  - wpaladin 6y ago
    What lawsuit is this? The only one I can find is from September 2019, https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users-including-amazon-elasticsearch-service-open-distro-and-others https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users-includin...
teddyh 6y ago
Initially, licence the software as AGPLv3. Then, if necessary, assign copyright to someone like the FSF or the Software Freedom Conservancy who has the goodwill to attract sponsors to keep up a suit for as long as necessary.
soumyadeb 6y ago
Some open-source projects have companies behind them - e.g. I am the founder of RudderStack, an open-source segment. We have thought about this quite a bit. The way to address this is to make offering your OSS as-a-service from day-1. Initially, you are small and AWS won't care. Once you become big, you should be able to compete with AWS on the service offering - afterall you know your code best. The problem arises when the OSS vendors had a different business model (open-source, on-prem support only) and AWS is able to completely own the as-a-service market.
streetcat1 6y ago
No. This will happen, but the real third wave is open source going out of the clouds and into Kubernetes. I actually expect Kubernetes to start offering the AWS services as CRD/operators, and not the other way around. cloud is dead.

by okram 6y ago

okram 6y ago

Ha. The two comments that critique Amazon got down voted with negative points. Does Amazon have cronies patrolling Hacker News to squash dissidents?

speedgoose 6y ago
Me too I realized that criticism towards AWS brings downvotes on HN. A bit strange because it's usually the opposite online. Maybe a lot of HN readers are working for AWS.
wisnesky 6y ago
You must be referring to the "love-hate" relationship between Amazon and open source software as described eg here? https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-and-commercial-open-source-in-the-cloud-its-complicated/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-and-commercial-open-sou... "Vendors developing those open source products started accusing AWS of strip mining, i.e., reaping the benefits of the products, without contributing back to their development."
- pabs3 6y ago
  I hate to defend Amazon, but it seems that they do contribute back to open source: https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/ https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/ For example running `git shortlog -ne` in the Linux kernel git repository will show a number of Amazon folks with many commits to their name.
  - redis_mlc 6y ago
    Linux contributions are not the best example, since it's GPL, and you pretty much have to contribute back to get your changes mainlined, and end-users can request your changes at any time. Now, if they contributed back to FreeBSD, that would be meaningful, since they don't have to.
    - pabs3 6y ago
      Amazon doesn't distribute Linux on server hardware (just consumer hardware like the Kindle) so they don't have to give back for server aspects of Linux like KVM, yet in the Linux kernel code, the Amazon employees are mostly submitting patches for things like KVM, not for Kindle hardware support. It would surprise me if Amazon use FreeBSD, I thought they use Xen & Linux KVM exclusively?
      - _msw_ 6y ago
        Disclosure: I work for AWS. See https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/1211125881264934917 https://twitter.com/cperciva/status/1211125881264934917 for one example of working with FreeBSD. It's truly awesome that I can send an email to Amazon saying "we're seeing an odd performance issue here" and get back "here's a FreeBSD kernel patch I just wrote which provides a 10% performance boost". And people claim that Amazon never contributes back to open source... I linked the patches here. Not all of the work is from an AWS engineer: https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1220088310443307008 https://twitter.com/_msw_/status/1220088310443307008 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23322 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23323 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23324 https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23325
  - cutemonster 6y ago
    Those are not the same open source projects. When Amazon strip mines and destroys some projects, I don't think that's any better just because they need and do changes in the kernel
    - pabs3 6y ago
1337shadow 6y ago
If that was the case, would they have to be many, or just one with a script and a catchall mailbox ?
- okram 6y ago
  They are probably using some free OSS script.
BubRoss 6y ago
You posted a borderline incoherent rant of nonsense, what did you expect?

speedgoose 6y ago

I'm probably naive but I don't think you need that much money to sue AWS. They may afford an army of lawyers, but that's their problem. You can't buy a judge as far as I know.

okram 6y ago
The ElasticSearch lawsuit is still ongoing. 5 years later. They are "quite the fish."
- wpaladin 6y ago
  What lawsuit is this? The only one I can find is from September 2019, https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users-including-amazon-elasticsearch-service-open-distro-and-others https://www.elastic.co/blog/dear-search-guard-users-includin...

teddyh 6y ago

Initially, licence the software as AGPLv3. Then, if necessary, assign copyright to someone like the FSF or the Software Freedom Conservancy who has the goodwill to attract sponsors to keep up a suit for as long as necessary.

soumyadeb 6y ago

Some open-source projects have companies behind them - e.g. I am the founder of RudderStack, an open-source segment. We have thought about this quite a bit. The way to address this is to make offering your OSS as-a-service from day-1. Initially, you are small and AWS won't care. Once you become big, you should be able to compete with AWS on the service offering - afterall you know your code best. The problem arises when the OSS vendors had a different business model (open-source, on-prem support only) and AWS is able to completely own the as-a-service market.

streetcat1 6y ago

No. This will happen, but the real third wave is open source going out of the clouds and into Kubernetes. I actually expect Kubernetes to start offering the AWS services as CRD/operators, and not the other way around. cloud is dead.