Open Source: A Good to Be Exploited?
December 25, 2019
Is Amazon Web Services taking undue advantage of open source software, or is it simply giving its users what they want (or perhaps both)? It seems to be a matter of perspective. ZDNet reports, “AWS Hits Back at Open-Source Software Critics: Claims that AWS is Strip-Mining Open-Source Software is ‘Silly and Off-Base,’ Says Exec.” The defense is in response to a piece (paywalled) in the New York Times in which open-source creators complained the company takes the liberty of freely integrating their work into its profitable platform. Writer Liam Tung specifies:
“According to the New York Times report, several rivals have discussed bringing antitrust complaints against AWS. Bloomberg reported this month that the Federal Trade Commission has asked software companies about AWS. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince told the NYT that ‘people are afraid that Amazon’s ambitions are endless’. Cloudflare operates a large content distribution network, which competes with a subsection of AWS.”
We also learn that open-source firms are shifting their licensing terms in response to such cloudy business practices from IBM and others, as well as Amazon. MongoDB’s Server Side Public License is one example. Elastic, maker of Elasticsearch, has also placed limits on how cloud companies may use its software.
AWS VP Andi Gutmans, however, insists this is much ado about nothing. Tung quotes the executive:
“‘The [Times] 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,’ Gutmans 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.
“‘A number of maintainers of open-source projects build commercial companies around the open-source project. A small set of outliers see it as a zero-sum game and want to be the only ones able to freely monetize managed services around these open-source projects,’ he added.”
And the remediation process? Lawyers are standing by.
Cynthia Murrell, December 25, 2019
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
