Elastic’s recent decision to return to open source marks a significant shift in the ongoing debate over licensing in the open source community. As announced by Elastic’s founder and CTO, Shay Banon, the company will be reintroducing the AGPL (GNU Affero General Public License) alongside its existing ELv2 (Elastic License 2.0) and SSPL (Server Side Public License). Banon expressed excitement over this move, emphasizing that Elastic has always remained committed to open source, despite past licensing changes. This change is largely influenced by the evolving relationship between Elastic and AWS, which had previously created friction over Elasticsearch usage.
The conflict between Elastic and AWS began when Amazon took Elasticsearch, built a managed service around it, and branded it as “Amazon Elasticsearch Service.” Elastic saw this as a clear misuse of its trademark, prompting it to change its license in 2021 to prevent AWS from directly using Elasticsearch for its own commercial offerings. In response, AWS forked Elasticsearch and developed OpenSearch, which has since gained traction as a competing product. Now, with AWS fully invested in OpenSearch and Elastic no longer facing the same level of competition over its own brand, the company feels comfortable embracing open source once again. Banon even described Elastic’s current partnership with AWS as stronger than ever.
This development raises a broader question for the open source industry: will other companies that previously shifted away from open source licensing reconsider their stance? Many businesses that commercialized open source software faced similar challenges from large cloud providers repackaging and selling their products with little or no contribution in return. Banon suggests that the answer lies largely with AWS and other cloud giants—if they can establish fairer partnerships with open source companies, more projects may be encouraged to revert to fully open source models.
The Elastic-AWS dispute also sheds light on a deeper issue—how trademarks are used in open source business models. While some critics argue that companies like Elastic use open source primarily as a marketing tool before shifting licenses for profit, Banon’s story challenges that notion. He initially trademarked Elasticsearch not to restrict usage but to protect his work, following a model similar to early open source pioneers like Red Hat. However, AWS’s decision to use the Elasticsearch name without contributing back led to significant legal battles. Ultimately, Elastic’s return to open source suggests that trademark protection and fair competition remain critical concerns in the evolving cloud and open source landscape.