AWS Launches Fully-Managed Document Database Service (zdnet.com)

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AWS Launches Fully-Managed Document Database Service (zdnet.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday January 10, 2019 @01:00AM from the fresh-coat-of-paint dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a fully-managed document database service, building the Amazon DocumentDB (with MongoDB compatibility) to support existing MongoDB workloads. The cloud giant said developers can use the same MongoDB application code, drivers, and tools as they currently do to run, manage, and scale workloads on Amazon DocumentDB. Amazon DocumentDB uses an SSD-based storage layer, with 6x replication across three separate Availability Zones. This means that Amazon DocumentDB can failover from a primary to a replica within 30 seconds, and supports MongoDB replica set emulation so applications can handle failover quickly. Each MongoDB database contains a set of collections -- similar to a relational database table -- with each collection containing a set of documents in BSON format. Amazon DocumentDB is compatible with version 3.6 of MongoDB and storage can be scaled from 10 GB up to 64 TB in increments of 10 GB. The new offering implements the MongoDB 3.6 API that allows customers to use their existing MongoDB drivers and tools with Amazon DocumentDB. In a separate report, TechCrunch's Frederic Lardinois says AWS is "giving open source the middle finger" by "taking the best open-source projects and re-using and re-branding them without always giving back to those communities."

"The wrinkle here is that MongoDB was one of the first companies that aimed to put a stop to this by re-licensing its open-source tools under a new license that explicitly stated that companies that wanted to do this had to buy a commercial license," Frederic writes. "Since then, others have followed."

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so it's not surprising that Amazon would try to capitalize on the popularity and momentum of MongoDB's document model," MongoDB CEO and president Dev Ittycheria told us. "However, developers are technically savvy enough to distinguish between the real thing and a poor imitation. MongoDB will continue to outperform any impersonations in the market."

27 of 59 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

BSD specifically asked for this by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 01:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is not the middle finger. This is exactly what the BSD people were on about when they insisted on the "freedom" to take the code and make it proprietary. Their only problem here is that someone else (Bezos) is profiting and not them. You can't take the benefit of getting the "many eyes" to fix your code and then suddenly complain when they use it according to the license.
If you wanted Bezos to keep cooperating then you would have used the AGPLv3. I have never seen evidence that Amazon breaks this license. They are respecting the requests of the license holders, even if that request wasn't what the license holders thought they were asking for.
1. Re:BSD specifically asked for this by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 01:25 · Score: 1
  
  I don't see any 'BSD people' complaining about this....
Imitators? by sjbe · 2019-01-10 01:30 · Score: 2

"However, developers are technically savvy enough to distinguish between the real thing and a poor imitation. MongoDB will continue to outperform any impersonations in the market."
This is what CEOs always say just before they are about to get ass-raped by those very same "imitators" they are bashing. I have no knowledge of the MongoDB product at all but I have a hard time believing that it has any special sauce that Amazon cannot at least in theory replicate and/or improve upon to the point that users will no longer care about the differences. Not saying that will happen but there isn't anything preventing it from happening either.
1. Re:Imitators? by bluefoxlucid · 2019-01-10 02:16 · Score: 1
  
  It's not like Amazon can't fork the last fully-GPL MongoDB and continue on with life.
  I've considered reimplementing the network and query protocols for MongoDB in an MIT-licensed library, allowing a storage back-end to use that as a drop-and-go MongoDB engine host--and if you're using the query protocol directly (without networking), you have MongoLite.
  I've also considered extending it to include an optional transaction/relational model, but that's getting a bit out there.
  
  --
  Support my political activism on Patreon.
2. Re:Imitators? by d0rp · 2019-01-10 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  From the TechCrunch article:
  
  AWS argues that while MongoDB is great at what it does, its customers have found it hard to build fast and highly available applications on the open-source platform that can scale to multiple terabytes and hundreds of thousands of reads and writes per second. So what the company did was build its own document database, but made it compatible with the Apache 2.0 open source MongoDB 3.6 API.
  So, it seems that they created their own implementation that is better and more efficient at scale (since that's what they're customers needed), and made it compatible with the existing APIs (so their customers wouldn't need to modify their code). So yeah, looks like they improved upon it rather than "imitated" it. (though, the AWS implementation appears to not include some of the latest features)
3. Re:Imitators? by kemitchell · 2019-01-13 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  Compare this piece from a VC perspective:
  
  Indeed, there is a risk that someone could read [the code a company has released], modify it slightly, and fork the distribution. But in developed economies – where much of the rents exist anyway, it’s unlikely that enterprise companies will elect the copycat as a supplier.
Re:Mongo Document != normal meaning of "Document" by olsmeister · 2019-01-10 01:36 · Score: 1

As a further clarification, the Mongo in MongoDB is not the same Mongo from Blazing Saddles.
Never understood the BSD argument by sjbe · 2019-01-10 01:36 · Score: 1

This is exactly what the BSD people were on about when they insisted on the "freedom" to take the code and make it proprietary.
I've always been puzzled by that "logic". BSD people argue that they aren't free unless they can do anything with the software including making it no longer free. That seems to be a self defeating argument. It's sort of analogous to the question of whether an omnipotent god has the ability to make itself no longer omnipotent. I don't have any problem with someone favoring a BSD style license for their code but to call it "free" seems illogical or at least misleading to me because it inevitably will become not-free even if it starts that way.
1. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by Luthair · 2019-01-10 01:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The argument is that they shouldn't be restricted with what they can do with it as that takes away freedom.
2. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 01:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This is exactly what the BSD people were on about when they insisted on the "freedom" to take the code and make it proprietary.
  I've always been puzzled by that "logic". BSD people argue that they aren't free unless they can do anything with the software including making it no longer free. That seems to be a self defeating argument. It's sort of analogous to the question of whether an omnipotent god has the ability to make itself no longer omnipotent. I don't have any problem with someone favoring a BSD style license for their code but to call it "free" seems illogical or at least misleading to me because it inevitably will become not-free even if it starts that way.
  You seem to presume that using BSD code in a non-open source manner makes the original code non-open source.
  Huh?
  "Do what you want with this" doesn't do a damn thing to the original code - it's still out there, and it's still free for anyone else to do with as they please.
  BSD's "Do what you want with this" is certainly a lot more free than "If you do anything with this, you have to give everything you do back to us".
3. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by Anonymous Coward · 2019-01-10 02:05 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I've always been puzzled by that "logic". BSD people argue that they aren't free unless they can do anything with the software including making it no longer free.
  
  Well, that is free ... as in free utterly without restrictions.
  You can't make the core thing not free, but you can freely take it and put it into your commercial product.
  There are situations where the GPL or similar license works, and there are places where the BSD model works. I've worked on products which had some BSD stuff in it (the Berkley DB stuff). I've also used LGPL stuff.
  
  I don't have any problem with someone favoring a BSD style license for their code but to call it "free" seems illogical or at least misleading to me because it inevitably will become not-free even if it starts that way.
  The initial recipient is free to do whatever they want, and there is no obligation to pass that along to someone else. As in when you get it, you are 100% free to do what you wish, and don't have any obligations to anybody else.
  GPL is 'free' in the sense that you can do anything you want with it as long as it fits what the GPL says you can do, but you are still restricted by the GPL.
  It's just a different philosophy that says "this is stuff we want people to have and use as they see fit, and we don't put any obligations on what you do with it later".
  The GPL says "you are free up to the point of the terms of the license", the BSD license says "you are free to do whatever you want to do with it".
4. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by drinkypoo · 2019-01-10 04:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It does reduce developer freedom, in order to increase user freedom. The users are who the program is for, so their freedom is most important. The developers may also be users; they both gain and lose freedoms by using the GPL. They have a choice to make, whether their rights as a user or their rights as a developer are more important. Of course, if they don't distribute the code to third parties, they don't need a license; if they do, then those other parties would most likely benefit most from use of the GPL, not the BSDl.
  Most software is used by multiple parties, and so the GPL preserves more freedom than it impedes.
  Many major contributors to Linux have stated outright that they contributed to Linux rather than a BSD specifically because it used the GPL, and as users, they stood to benefit from others' contributions which might never see the light of day under a different license. And lo, Linux is more popular than BSD today.
  GPL is the superior license for users, and users outnumber developers, most of whom are also users. GPL produces better results than BSD. QED, GPL is the superior license.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
5. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by Luthair · 2019-01-10 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  That is absurd. We as developers have the freedom to license the software we write in anyway we choose.
6. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by drinkypoo · 2019-01-10 09:01 · Score: 1
  
  That is absurd. We as developers have the freedom to license the software we write in anyway we choose.
  Point to the part of my comment where I suggest otherwise, let alone say it.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
7. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by drinkypoo · 2019-01-11 01:56 · Score: 1
  
  "And the inverse of that is if developers are unhappy with a license, the software users want may never be developed. Also, crawl back under your bridge."
  Linux proves that the GPL drives development more than the BSD license, because developers are happier with GPL than with BSD. Now run along, son, the adults are discussing what is, not what you want to be.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
8. Re:Never understood the BSD argument by Luthair · 2019-01-17 03:21 · Score: 1
  
  Are you obtuse? You made the claim that it reduces developer freedom, except it doesn't because the developer was free to choose any license they desired.
Re:Mongo Document != normal meaning of "Document" by nojayuk · 2019-01-10 01:42 · Score: 2

"Datagram for Mongo!"
Re:Mongo Document != normal meaning of "Document" by Luthair · 2019-01-10 01:46 · Score: 1

The editors of Slashdot understand that anyone reading the site knows exactly what a document database is.
Re:"Giving open source the middle finger"???? by Luthair · 2019-01-10 01:58 · Score: 1

The dumber part is that MongoDB was previously licensed as AGPL, which means that Amazon is likely not using any source they simply made a compatible product.
Freedom for the product is what matters by sjbe · 2019-01-10 02:56 · Score: 1

You seem to presume that using BSD code in a non-open source manner makes the original code non-open source.
I'm well aware of how BSD code works and never even implied such a thing. What you are missing is that I could give a rip about that. I care about whether the product made with the code can be modified or not. THAT is what freedom means. The code itself is just useless text.

"Do what you want with this" doesn't do a damn thing to the original code - it's still out there, and it's still free for anyone else to do with as they please.
Yes I understand all that and it is irrelevant. The problem is that you are confusing the code with the product made with the code. Maximal "freedom" (for lack of a better word) for the code does not equal maximal freedom for the things made with the code. Code by itself is USELESS until you put it into a product. I care about the product remaining free in the open source or FSF meaning of the word.

BSD's "Do what you want with this" is certainly a lot more free than "If you do anything with this, you have to give everything you do back to us".
You think freedom has something to do with the code. It doesn't - at least to me. Freedom is the ability to modify THE PRODUCT that the code enables. I want to be able to modify what AWS does with the code if it suits me to do so. The code is just the means to that end. I don't care about code, I care about what it lets me do. BSD let's people do things that prevent me from modifying the product to suit my needs and therefore is less "free" at the end of the day. Using a license that you know is going to result in closed-source products and then pretending you are increasing freedom with regard to those products is to completely miss the fucking plot.
1. Re:Freedom for the product is what matters by ChatHuant · 2019-01-10 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  I care about whether the product made with the code can be modified or not. THAT is what freedom means.
  No, that's not what freedom means. You're playing the redefinition game. There is too much of that going around, from people redefining "pro-life" to allow for shooting of doctors to people redefining "racism" so it only applies to whites. Also, you're trying to pull a fast one, by sneakily changing the subject of the discussion from the original code (whose freedom is in question) to new code, written by users of the original code. Neither tactic is nice.
  You should really pick a different hill to stand on. Say that the GPL is better for the economy, because it makes more code available to the public, or that it provides better security, because you can examine the code an enterprise uses in the devices it sells you, or that it forms an ideological framework that may be beneficial to society. Those points are all better arguable, and probably true. But don't insist it provides more freedom. This is doublethink. Look at your own posts, see the tortured logic and low semantic games you're forced to use to argue your position, and draw the inevitable conclusion.
2. Re:Freedom for the product is what matters by drinkypoo · 2019-01-11 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  By taking away Amazon's freedom to use the code as they would like?
  They are free to distribute or not distribute code they own, and if they distribute it, they are free to choose the license. The only related things they're not free to do are re-license someone else's code without their permission, or re-distribute someone else's code without a license. If they want to incorporate e.g. GPL code into their code and not distribute their code, they are free to do that. And if they want to distribute their code without the GPL bits later, they can do that, too. Which freedoms are being taken away from Amazon? Absent some license, they wouldn't have the right to someone else's code at all.
  
  --
  "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Outsourced restrictions by sjbe · 2019-01-10 03:08 · Score: 1

Well, that is free ... as in free utterly without restrictions.
The restrictions come later when the code is turned into a product. Are you seriously going to argue that BSD code in a proprietary product isn't a de-facto restriction? All they are doing is leaving it to someone else to decide what the restrictions are but there invariably are restrictions once you use the code to actually do something useful.

You can't make the core thing not free, but you can freely take it and put it into your commercial product.
See that's where you lose the plot. The core thing isn't the code. The code is just a means to an end. What matters is whether the product is free, not the parts of that product. Code is just text. Useless by itself.

The initial recipient is free to do whatever they want, and there is no obligation to pass that along to someone else. As in when you get it, you are 100% free to do what you wish, and don't have any obligations to anybody else.
That seems logical to those who don't think about it very deeply but it completely misses the bigger picture. Nobody uses code. Code is just instructions. What matters is what people DO with the code and what the restrictions on the product are. Your argument only makes sense if you think the code is the only thing that matters. If you use a license like BSD that you know damn well is going to go into closed-source products then you do not get to make the argument that you are preserving freedom for the people who use those products. All you are doing is increasing freedom for some at the expense of many more later on.
Re: Mongo Document != normal meaning of "Document" by Luthair · 2019-01-10 06:34 · Score: 1

Says the man who doesn't know what a document database is. This isn't a gadget blog.
Re:"Giving open source the middle finger"???? by d0rp · 2019-01-10 08:55 · Score: 1

which means that Amazon is likely not using any source they simply made a compatible product.
That's the impression I got while reading the articles.
Re: Your not paying for the code by astrofurter · 2019-01-10 22:30 · Score: 1

"if that's a problem for open source developers then don't do open source."
That's what's happening already. Thanks to several plagues afflicting our community - leeches like this shill's boss Bezos, complete industry domination by the Sandhill Road VC cabal, corporate imposition of progressive nazi CoCs, and race to the bottom 3rd world outsourcing - more and more talented people are abandoning open source development. No one likes working for free while their enemies enjoy the fruits of their labor.
There are a little over 1000 open source packages in the dependency tree of my company's main application. I estimate that fully 50% of those packages are effectively abandoned. This is a young codebase and bit rot has already set in!
In the future I predict this trend will accelerate. Fewer new open source packages will be released, and even fewer will have long term active development. Even actively used packages may be unmaintained, since Agile(tm) companies won't spend the resources to actually contribute anything.
As more and more open source projects are abandoned, maintaining applications built atop them will become steadily more burdensome, expensive, and potentially disruptive. Running faster to stay in the same place. And the pace of new development will slow markedly as the commons dwindles. Working harder for less return.
Good job, capitalist dogs! You're killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Re: Your not paying for the code by drinkypoo · 2019-01-11 03:42 · Score: 1

There are a little over 1000 open source packages in the dependency tree of my company's main application. I estimate that fully 50% of those packages are effectively abandoned. This is a young codebase and bit rot has already set in!
This, uh, comment... raises an interesting question. Seems to me like there's more OSS projects than ever. So what percentage of projects are abandoned over time, and what does that translate into in terms of total number of projects which are not abandoned?

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"