Elastic announced that the company is changing the software licensing strategy for Elasticsearch and Kibana before the next version. The new versions will be released under the Elastic License and Server Side Public License, instead of Apache License, Version 2.0, or ALv2 for short. Shortly after Elastic’s announcement, AWS announced that in order to ensure open-source versions of Elasticsearch and Kibana, the cloud giant will create and maintain an ALv2-licensed fork for this software.
ALv2-licensed forks
AWS stated that its Elasticsearch and Kibana forks will be based on the latest ALv2-licensed codebases, version 7.10. The cloud giant will also publish new GitHub repositories in the next few weeks. The company also ensured that these changes will not affect Amazon Elasticsearch Service customers negatively. AWS currently offers 18 versions of Elasticsearch on Amazon ES, and none of these are affected by the license change. AWS also stated that,
“In the future, Amazon ES will be powered by the new fork of Elasticsearch and Kibana. We will continue to deliver new features, fixes, and enhancements. We are committed to providing compatibility to eliminate any need to update your client or application code. Just as we do today, we will provide you with a seamless upgrade path to new versions of the software.
This change will not slow the velocity of enhancements we offer to our customers. If anything, a community-owned Elasticsearch codebase presents new opportunities for us to move faster in improving stability, scalability, resiliency, and performance.”