[Koha-devel] Elasticsearch vs OpenSearch

[d***@prosentient.com.au]

Because I'm good at stirring up trouble.
https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/opensearch-aws-rolls-out-its
-open-source-elasticsearch-fork/



As you may know, AWS have forked the last FOSS Elasticsearch (7.10 I think).
They've announced that they're calling it OpenSearch. It's still only in
alpha stage and they won't have a production-ready release for months yet,
but it is interesting to keep notes on.



Elastic are responsible for the vast majority of commits in Elasticsearch,
so I'm somewhat skeptical about a fork, but I think there is a lot of anger
at Elastic and a lot of support for OpenSearch, so who knows.



I don't think there's anything to do at this stage, but just wanted to share
the information for people



David Cook

Software Engineer

Prosentient Systems

Suite 7.03

6a Glen St

Milsons Point NSW 2061

Australia



Office: 02 9212 0899

Online: 02 8005 0595

[Victor Grousset/tuxayo]

Hi :)

Because I’m good at stirring up trouble…

XD

AWS have forked the last FOSS Elasticsearch (7.10 I think)

Hopefully AWS won't be the only one doing all the work and having all
the control. (Red Hat, SAP, Capital One, CrateDB, Aiven and Logz.io are
said to be part of it)

They’ve announced that they’re calling it OpenSearch. It’s still
only in alpha stage and they won’t have a production-ready release for
months yet, but it is interesting to keep notes on.

Great news to see this moving. Because the topic will come in the
future. Since ES isn't libre/open source anymore, ES even acknowledges that.
https://www.elastic.co/pricing/faq/licensing#what-is-sspl-and-how-does-it-work?

There is a lot written stuff and contradictory analysis on the topic.
But regardless of what the ES FAQ and blog posts says. **Is there a
reliable legal analysis on the license text?**
The closest thing I have found so far is this one:
https://anonymoushash.vmbrasseur.com/2021/01/14/elasticsearch-and-kibana-are-now-business-risks#page-title
Found also people dismissing it as FUD but without contradictory legal
analysis.

The key question are: Is Koha legally usable with SSPL ES?
Is it's affected by it's copyleft clause? (up) Same question for the
underlying components used to run ES. (down)

Elastic are responsible for the vast majority of commits in
Elasticsearch, so I’m somewhat skeptical about a fork, but I think there
is a lot of anger at Elastic and a lot of support for OpenSearch, so who
knows.

The last libre version of ES is pretty great as it is. Not having the
fastest possible development on OpenSearch won't take away that.

I don’t think there’s anything to do at this stage, but just wanted to
share the information for people

+1, thanks.

[Victor Grousset/tuxayo]

Hi :)

Found another legal analysis that contradicts the first one:
https://writing.kemitchell.com/2021/01/20/Righteous-Expedient-Wrong.html

Even if contradictory, that still helps to understand the situation.
Divergence still means something about the eventual risks.

Some thoughts after reading:
"SaaS capture”, “Amazon problem”, “Google problem” are legitimate
concerns. But this controversy shows how hard it is to address it.

Even if the copyleft doesn't affect Koha. It seems clear that it affects
management services (what is the extent of that?).
So what about if a hosting management tool is under a copyleft license?
IIUC it can't be released under the SSPL. So that would force to only
use permissive licensed management tools.
So it's not a legal blocker but that restrict possibilities. And
actually leads to a loss of freedom on these tools because copyleft
software help about that.

Some non-Koha thoughts:
1. Does having the hosting management tools of Amazon or Google or
Microsoft would really help not them having a quasi monopolistic share
on the hosting of databases et other tools? (public interest PoV)
Well actually it's to have them buy the version with the other license.

2. Do ElasticSearch actually lacks money to maintain the same level of
work on the ES stack and give the investors a reasonable return of
investment? (accounting that it was a risky one so the return should be
more than the average)
As for the second part, there is actually no limit on the ROI (imagine
if loans worked like that, lol), especially with venture capital. So
there can be doubt on the legitimacy of the additional need of revenue.

Cheers,