The SSPL is a sham of an open source license. Its written (and named!) in a way to convince shallow readers that its just a service-oriented version of the GPL, but its practically impossible to fulfill the terms of this license in a way which enables third parties to legally host the so-called "open source software". That's the point of the SSPL; to make sure the company who created the so-called open source software is the only company that can monetize it. Does that sound like the state Linux is in to you?
The core legal requirement the GPL puts on distributors is that modifications must also be made open source. That's powerful, and attainable. The core legal requirement the SSPL puts on "third-party distributors" is the requirement that all the source code for that distributor's service must be made open source. First: It doesn't even apply to Elastic. Second: Binaries are discrete; services are networked, often involving many pieces, and there's no strong legal definition for what "service" means in the SSPL.
MongoDB invented it, submitted it to OSI for approval in 2018, then withdrew the application in 2019. Its still not an OSI approved license. Every major linux distro ceased distributing MongoDB upon the relicense, under concerns that its not actually an open source license.
Elastic wants to keep the conversation focused on AWS. Look, I like AWS, but they can be pretty icky, I get that. However, this is not a dichotomy. Elastic betrayed the open source community. They started with open source as a major selling point of elasticsearch, used that selling point to gain traction and users; many of whom did not pay elastic for the service, to be sure. When they had secured a moat of success, they flipped the license to one that is not open source, and now those users are forced to come to elastic for support.
Elastic should be able to make money. In the spirit of that, we just need to be clear: They're effectively no better than, say, Algolia. Yeah, I can read the source code. I can't really change it in a meaningful way. I can self-host (which I can do with many closed-source products). I can't sub-contract a specialist like AWS to manage it for me. Them switching to the SSPL is "fine". They're just not an open source company anymore. This is not an "AWS is evil, Elastic is great" situation; this is a "they're both companies who do some good things and some evil things, but above all else they care about money" situation. There are true open source projects which aren't like this; elasticsearch was one of these, it isn't anymore, and we should focus on supporting products which support their users back, not ones which are built to support The Company.
The core legal requirement the GPL puts on distributors is that modifications must also be made open source. That's powerful, and attainable. The core legal requirement the SSPL puts on "third-party distributors" is the requirement that all the source code for that distributor's service must be made open source. First: It doesn't even apply to Elastic. Second: Binaries are discrete; services are networked, often involving many pieces, and there's no strong legal definition for what "service" means in the SSPL.
MongoDB invented it, submitted it to OSI for approval in 2018, then withdrew the application in 2019. Its still not an OSI approved license. Every major linux distro ceased distributing MongoDB upon the relicense, under concerns that its not actually an open source license.
Elastic wants to keep the conversation focused on AWS. Look, I like AWS, but they can be pretty icky, I get that. However, this is not a dichotomy. Elastic betrayed the open source community. They started with open source as a major selling point of elasticsearch, used that selling point to gain traction and users; many of whom did not pay elastic for the service, to be sure. When they had secured a moat of success, they flipped the license to one that is not open source, and now those users are forced to come to elastic for support.
Elastic should be able to make money. In the spirit of that, we just need to be clear: They're effectively no better than, say, Algolia. Yeah, I can read the source code. I can't really change it in a meaningful way. I can self-host (which I can do with many closed-source products). I can't sub-contract a specialist like AWS to manage it for me. Them switching to the SSPL is "fine". They're just not an open source company anymore. This is not an "AWS is evil, Elastic is great" situation; this is a "they're both companies who do some good things and some evil things, but above all else they care about money" situation. There are true open source projects which aren't like this; elasticsearch was one of these, it isn't anymore, and we should focus on supporting products which support their users back, not ones which are built to support The Company.