AWS Transfers OpenSearch to the Linux Foundation
VIENNA — The popular open source analytics engine OpenSearch will now be directed by the community rather than Amazon Web Services.
At Open Source Summit Europe, AWS announced it’s transferring OpenSearch, its fork of ElasticSearch, to the Linux Foundation. This is a significant shift in the governance and development of the popular open source search and analytics engine, which has recorded over 700 million downloads since its inception in 2021.
OpenSearch began when Elastic, makers of the open source search and analytic engine Elasticsearch, changed its license from the open source Apache 2.0-license (ALv2) to the open source unfriendly Server Side Public License (SSPL). Elastic did this because it saw AWS as taking advantage of hosting Elasticsearch but not collaborating with the company that created it.
Elastic also objected to AWS using its Elasticsearch trademark. AWS responded by forking both Elasticsearch and its companion data visualization dashboard, Kibana, under ALv2.
Wait a minute, some of you are thinking. Didn’t Elastic just rejoin the open source faith by placing Elasticsearch under the open source GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL)? Didn’t Elastic say everything is fine and dandy with AWS now? Why, yes. Yes, it did.
The two open source moves, however, even though their timing was quite a coincidence, had nothing to do with each other. “We’ve been working on setting up a vendor-neutral OpenSearch foundation for roughly a year,” David Nalley, AWS director of open source strategy and marketing, told The New Stack.
As for Elastic, the company was not involved in setting up the OpenSearch Software Foundation. Nevertheless, Nalley said, “Elastics is an important customer for Amazon. Our relationship has never been better, and we obviously have had ongoing conversations with Elastic.”
That said, he concluded, “I’m not aware of anyone who’s had conversations about the announcement of the OpenSearch foundation with Elastic.”
What does Elastic have to say about this move? So far, it hasn’t uttered a peep.
Laying a Foundation for Growth
Turning back to the new, improved OpenSearch, to oversee the project’s future development and foster open collaboration in its search and analytics technologies, the Linux Foundation has launched the previously mentioned OpenSearch Software Foundation. This new foundation will provide a vendor-neutral environment for OpenSearch, encouraging broader community participation and innovation.
“By transferring OpenSearch to the Linux Foundation, we are setting the project and its community up for its next stage of growth,” said Nandini Ramani, AWS’s vice president of search and cloud operations, in her keynote address at Open Source Summit.
“With vendor-neutral governance that invites greater collaboration, along with programming and operational resources to further nurture the community, we look forward to working collaboratively with this new foundation.”
By bringing OpenSearch under the Linux Foundation’s umbrella, AWS hopes to ensure the project’s long-term sustainability and encourage more diverse contributions from the global developer community.
“From the get-go, we planned to build a broad community and be inclusive with a community-driven roadmap and involvement,” said Carl Meadows, director of product for Amazon OpenSearch Service and the OpenSearch project, in his keynote at the conference.
OpenSearch: A ‘Swiss Army Knife’
What does all this mean for users?
“OpenSearch is a Swiss army knife,” Meadows said. “I’m constantly surprised to hear how users are using the product in new and innovative ways. It is a search platform, a backend for AI/ML powered applications, an observability solution, and an analytics suite.”
Indeed, OpenSearch has already evolved into a comprehensive suite for various applications, including real-time application monitoring, log analytics and website search. The project’s transition to the Linux Foundation is expected to accelerate its adoption across different industries and mission-critical workloads.
The OpenSearch Software Foundation launches with support from premier members AWS, SAP, and Uber, as well as general members including Aiven, Aryn, Atlassian, Canonical, DigitalOcean, Eliatra, Graylog, Instaclustr by NetApp, and Porta. Other companies are expected to sign on shortly.
As part of this transition, the OpenSearch Project will be organized as an open technical project within the Linux Foundation, overseen by a technical steering committee. This structure is designed to maintain the project’s technical integrity while fostering an open and collaborative development environment.
