Is Open Source Changing and Rapidly?
January 7, 2020
Open source technology is what some perceive as unencumbered, handcuff free code. For outfits eager to slash costs, open source software is a foot stool for some developers and organizations. One interpretation of open source operates on the premise that the technology should be free and available for anyone. The social contract is that users “give back” to the open source community.
Some Amazon Web Services’ critics appear to suggest that the company is not giving back. Not surprisingly, some AWS-ers are not happy campers. ZDNet shares more on the story in the article, “AWS Hits Back At Open-Source Software Critics.”
Also, the deeply technical New York Times was not kind to AWS, when it stated that AWS, a giant cloud computing provider, consistently integrated open source software that non-AWS developers created. Vice President of AWS analytics and ElasticCache Andi Gutman claims that AWS is giving its customers what they want. Gutman says that Was customers want technology and services based off open source technology, so AWS is not strip mining, but truly answering their clients’ desires. He continued:
“The story is largely talking about open source software projects and companies who’ve tried to build businesses around commercializing that open-source software. These open-source projects enable any company to utilize this software on-premises or in the cloud, and build services around it. AWS customers have repeatedly asked AWS to build managed services around open source,” Gutman said.
He noted that AWS contributes to open-source projects such as Linux, Java, Kubernetes, Xen, KVM, Chromium, Robot Operating System, Apache Lucene, Redis, s2n, FreeRTOS and Elasticsearch.”
The complaints apparently come from AWS’s rivals, who have also discussed filing antitrust complaints against the company. One rival CEO, Matthew Prince of Cloudflare, is afraid Amazon’s ambitions are endless and might overpower or monopolize the entire cloud computing market.
Will open source return to its roots? Will some open source developers not permit big companies to privatize the community technology?
Which will triumph? Open source precepts or the needs of a publicly-traded company?
Elastic, the developers of open source Elastic, the write up “Why Elastic Stock Dropped 19% in December” may presage the impact of efforts to change the definition of open source.
Whitney Grace, January 7, 2020
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