"At what threshold should anyone with principals and a backbone stop caring?"
Good lord - the views on HN are wild. I'm aging myself, but open source licensing (used) to not be that complicated.
The principles of open source are being violated by Elastic not AWS - just so we are clear. That is not so complicated.
If Elastic wants to make it so contributors to the software have FEWER rights than Elastic, that is fine, but that is not open source.
The principles of open source are normally that if I contribute to something that is open source licensed, that I can then use the code in the same way as anyone else. That includes hosting it for myself, doing a small consulting practice to build out some hosting for others, doing shared service hosting etc etc.
This is a live view of a new generation learning about the difficulties of market competition.
We're seeing this pattern in several contexts in the industry: Rather than compete, which requires listening and responding to customers (talking to people is hard), they prefer a magic wand (a new license, or regulation or something perceived to be "easy") to force large successful companies (which they see as immutable fixtures that can never be defeated) to break up or neutered so that smaller entrants can succeed.
"Be careful what you wish for". Smaller entrants aren't necessarily more ethical nor do they offer a better service than large incumbents. It really varies.
Good lord - the views on HN are wild. I'm aging myself, but open source licensing (used) to not be that complicated.
The principles of open source are being violated by Elastic not AWS - just so we are clear. That is not so complicated.
If Elastic wants to make it so contributors to the software have FEWER rights than Elastic, that is fine, but that is not open source.
The principles of open source are normally that if I contribute to something that is open source licensed, that I can then use the code in the same way as anyone else. That includes hosting it for myself, doing a small consulting practice to build out some hosting for others, doing shared service hosting etc etc.