here we go, the inevitable fork from AWS. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/opensource/stepping-up-for-a-truly-open-source-elasticsearch/ - lets get it out of the way up front: this is what they had to do, and it's no surprise their doing it. They don't deserve a super hero cape for it, but its the right thing for their customers and the community

That they continue to maintain that they can just use that Elasticsearch mark is very interesting to me. Will they call these forks Elasticsearch and Kibana? And just fight it out in court?

Also, you can tell how angry they are. I bet this was the *polite* version. This is AWS at their best, though: they launched that service, they will stand by it until the end of time. If that means having a crew of developers improving elasticsearch directly, so be it.

They already were doing it for Lucene. Hopefully they will hook up with the other folks planning on forking, and we wind up with a community maintained path forward.

Meanwhile, Elastic took an adversary who ultimately continued to provide a channel for them, and turned it off. In two years, the choice won't be between simply who provides support, expertise, etc. It will be between features.

They broke their own market stranglehold. I think it won't matter, because they are big enough, and entrenched enough, that they can live a good life on the proprietary momentum alone. But how long before other service providers switch to the one AWS maintains?

Because it will be *100%* of them, if they know whats good for them. Given enough time, Elastic will be in the corner. By starting so hard at this particular curb, they're guaranteed to hit it. It's sad.

Just remember, at heart: this is two giant companies fighting to put their hand in your pocket. That one of them (AWS) is *also* fighting for open source is a side effect. I'm glad they're doing it. But their motivations aren't exactly pure either. Nobody's a hero here.