Recently, Elasticsearch B.V. made an announcement regarding the return of open source status for the Elasticsearch data search, analysis, and storage platforms, as well as the Kibana web interface. Along with proprietary licenses, ELASTICSEARCH and Kibana code will now be distributed under the AGPLV3 free license. Previously, the products were distributed under the Apache 2.0 license before transitioning to proprietary licenses, which is still being used in Opensearch.
The decision to revert to an open source model for code distribution is attributed to issues with AWS (Amazon Web Services). It is reported that following the change in license by Elasticsearch, Amazon started investing in the development of its own version, strengthening partnerships with AWS, eliminating market confusion, and alleviating previous threats to Elasticsearch’s business.
Unlike the GPLV3 license, the AGPLV3 license imposes additional restrictions for applications that enable network services. Developers must provide users with the source code for any changes made to AGPL components when utilizing them in network service operations, even if the software is solely used in internal infrastructure. Additionally, integrating AGPL code from Elasticsearch into a project requires transforming the project’s code base under the AGPL license.
In 2021, the Elasticsearch project shifted to the SSPL (SERVER SIDE Public License) license, derived from AGPLV3, imposing extra requirements for not only the application code but also the source texts of all components involved in cloud service provision. The SSPL license did not garner open source status due to its discriminatory nature towards certain user categories, leading to the provision of an ELV2 commercial license as an alternative for dissatisfied users. Responding to Amazon’s license, Red Hat, SAP, Capital One, and Logz.io initiated a fork called Opensearch, where the community continued developing the open code base from Elasticsearch 7.10.