It's an interesting move for sure but I don't think it's enough. A move back to the Apache license would open up the landscape for a reunification with the now dominant fork, which is Opensearch. But that's not going to happen with AGPL + copyright transfers. AGPL + copyright transfers vs. SSPL is a choice between getting stabbed or shot from a legal point of view. It's a hard no either way for a lot of corporate legal departments.
I also don't think this will inspire a lot of companies or developers to start contributing changes to the Elasticsearch code base again; which is something that ground to a halt earlier. I saw my modest contributions under the Apache license being locked up behind this bullshit license and I learned my lesson: I'm never signing another contributor license again. My trust was violated. Not lifting a finger to help them.
Elastic suffered a self inflicted fork of their developer community three years ago and Opensearch has become the default search solution for a lot of developers and companies. Opensearch replaced Elasticsearch as a neutral ground for open source researchers to rally around. I don't see that changing in any material way because of this license change.
It's interesting that they are doing this though because clearly they are feeling the pressure and basically people using the opensource argument was cutting off their stream of new users. I consult in this space and Opensearch has become the default choice for new users. It isn't even close. Why would you pick Elastic as a first time user? They don't even consider Elasticsearch because it's all closed source and proprietary and Opensearch does the job. I don't think this change is enough to change that.
IMHO their next logical step is embracing/acknowledging Opensearch and moving their efforts to join Opensearch and supporting that. That's a huge community of users, developers and companies that's just sitting there without delivering any revenue to Elastic. It's stupid; they are competing with their own product and leaving a lot of money on the table. Elastic has all the core skills to support that community but they are just sitting on their hands now pretending it doesn't exist. They must be starting to feel the pressure to just toss in the towel and grab a chunk of that market. This our way or the highway position sure has resulted in a lot of people choosing the highway.
I was scared away as a plugin developer when Elastic changed to closed source, because the plugin that I assembled was based on third-party code and can only licensed under AGPL. Fun fact is, I could now resume my plugin development, and provide the code in the open with future Elasticsearch versions. But will I do it? I am also frustrated and my trust was violated.
The point is, having Opensearch as an alternative is finding answers to my question to resume Elasticsearch development not easier than before. All the positive aspects are still counting for Opensearch. It is true that AGPL is not enough.
While I do not think there will ever be an effort by the Elastic company to join Opensearch or embrace the Opensearch community, it seems to me the license switch to AGPL was driven by the analysis that Elastic's product offering can not be copied any more by hyperscalers. It was a mere question of the exclusiveness of the cloud service offering. That collided with the Apache license once. But now, it is clear that Amazon will never switch back to the Elastic stack as their primary cloud service search product.
I also don't think this will inspire a lot of companies or developers to start contributing changes to the Elasticsearch code base again; which is something that ground to a halt earlier. I saw my modest contributions under the Apache license being locked up behind this bullshit license and I learned my lesson: I'm never signing another contributor license again. My trust was violated. Not lifting a finger to help them.
Elastic suffered a self inflicted fork of their developer community three years ago and Opensearch has become the default search solution for a lot of developers and companies. Opensearch replaced Elasticsearch as a neutral ground for open source researchers to rally around. I don't see that changing in any material way because of this license change.
It's interesting that they are doing this though because clearly they are feeling the pressure and basically people using the opensource argument was cutting off their stream of new users. I consult in this space and Opensearch has become the default choice for new users. It isn't even close. Why would you pick Elastic as a first time user? They don't even consider Elasticsearch because it's all closed source and proprietary and Opensearch does the job. I don't think this change is enough to change that.
IMHO their next logical step is embracing/acknowledging Opensearch and moving their efforts to join Opensearch and supporting that. That's a huge community of users, developers and companies that's just sitting there without delivering any revenue to Elastic. It's stupid; they are competing with their own product and leaving a lot of money on the table. Elastic has all the core skills to support that community but they are just sitting on their hands now pretending it doesn't exist. They must be starting to feel the pressure to just toss in the towel and grab a chunk of that market. This our way or the highway position sure has resulted in a lot of people choosing the highway.