Elasticsearch is no longer open source

Elastic has moved Elasticsearch and Kibana off Apache 2.0 and onto the SSPL and its own licence. The source is still readable. It is no longer open source, and that changes what any managed service can honestly promise.

What actually changed

Apache 2.0 let anyone run the software, modify it and offer it to others, including as a service. The new terms do not. Source you can read is not the same as source you may use, and the gap between the two only becomes visible at the moment you want to do something the licensor would rather you didn’t.

Why it matters if you run a cluster

The licence sits upstream of everything else. It decides who is allowed to operate the software on your behalf, which is another way of saying how many suppliers you get to choose between, and what your options are if you fall out with one of them.

An open format and an engine anyone may run are what make leaving possible at all. Remove the second and the first is worth less than it looks.

Where we stand

Nothing changes for anyone running a cluster with us today. We keep managing them.

What we won’t do is treat this as housekeeping. It is a real reduction in what customers can count on, and the answer to it is not a statement of values. It is an engine that is genuinely open with more than one vendor willing to stand behind it. We would like to see one, and we will say so here when we do.