2022-07-11 Meeting notes

Membership

@Boaz Nadav Manes 

• Status of MoUs, other Membership drive activities

• FOLIO officers will go through the state of MOUs tomorrow

Treasurer's update

 @Paula Sullenger 

• MOUs invoices are to be send out → still in process

• Bank account is looking healthy

CC Chair, FOLIO Manager, FOLIO Secretary

@Mike Gorrell 

On May 9th the CC outlined each position associated with FOLIO SMLLC and its roles. As expressed last meeting, @Mike Gorrell feels like he is not able to provide all of the attention that's required to be an effective chair.

Any interest, volunteers, or ideas?

Paula, Boaz, Kirstin are volunteering to continue to be FOLIO officers

Jesse: introducing the job of a "co-chair" 

• Simeon is volunteering for co-chair: offer is accepted   

Tom: can we do more to create responsibilities to balance the work of the CC in a better way?

• Define roles on concrete tasks, like leading a sub group, etc.

Elastic Search vs Open Search

@Ian Ibbotson (Use this one) 

The situation that exists between Elastic and Amazon/AWS is one that interests me intensely from an open source software sustainability perspective. In essence Amazon wish to provide hosted pay-for services using Elastic code (under the name OpenSearch), and don't want to contribute back to the development of that code base. This has forced Elastic to adjust it's licensing in order to prevent AWS from exploitative use of their open source code. There are parallels with our situation, and we would do well to reflect hard on all of this.

• Do we want to continue to support an OS project?

• Secure Apache license in future?

• Does FOLIO have a written policy that prevents us to continue ES instead switching to OpenSearch?    Marc: Pick the tool, that is supporting Apache to prevent breaching our license commitment

• Rigth now, ES and OpenSearch are technically / functional "still the same", but this might change in future

• Harry: there are 2 stories 

  • Apache V2 is promoted in the project

  • ES is built on top Apache Lucene Solr with Apache V2

  • ES ist Apache V2 → but ES company is a commercial one

    • ES has some proprietary pieces

    • In Germany a company distributed a smal piece of code os → ES filed a law suit and lost in the first place → but conflict continues

  • That leads to insecurities in dealing with ES?

  • ES moved the os code to closed source and took the efforts of Amazon, EBSCO with them ...

  • Amazon decided to take the last os version and continue to have OpenSearch OS

  • With ES not hosted service might not be allowed?

  • GPL license is not comparable with Apache V2

    • is not recognizing the formerly exisiting code → migth lead to law suits?

  • EBSCO will go with OpenSearch - there is no other way ahead

• Mike: please view the remarks of the TC as well

• Ian: 

  • other narrative: devs who wrote ES are still at ES company

  • disagreement, that you can switch between the two options

  • the devs will want to make the code base diverse → you need to make a choice in the future!  Harry is aligned with that

• Mike: What can the CC decide about that?

• Kirstin: what are the consequences to change the search machine?

• Ian

  • maybe OpenSearch won't be maintained in the same way as ES in future? 

• Mike

  • Ask TC for more guidance?    Was that said?

• Harry: 

  • It is a licensing issue

  • Technical concerns: better go to TC

  • ES went to a closed source license → how does this concern the Apache V2 license

• Boaz

  • Decision seems to be made already, as EBSCO already made that: open search

  • Is one option more neutral than the other? Is one very Amazon focused?

• Ian

  • AWS had not made up their mind here. They support both. 

• Marc: 

  • licensing is not tested very deeply - a lot of open questions

  • What about the client code in PostGreSQL?

  • FOLIO decided to shift to OpenSearch - no matter how the decison was made

  • Questions set: What service do we support? And what client code do we support?

  • notetaker lost Marc - please add here

• Mike

  • until now, the CC didn't care a lot about the licenses → we might need a group to deal with licensing in os projects?

• Simeon supports this idea

• More from Simeon!  Please add

• Boaz: this is the best way the CC can work on that → different perspectives!

  • Maybe the community can't change decisions but at least can be aware and transparent about it

Result: Mike asks for volunteers to found, participate and lead the sub-group

Marko: Other library projects use Solr - is this still an option?

Ian: Would be problematic.  Configuration doesn't fit. 

Harry: Solr is full text focused, ES is more search focused

UPDATE(II,2022-07-23) : Open Slack channel cc-elasticsearch-opensearch-discussion created and named folks above added. Initial comments requested by w/c 1st Aug 2022.

Resourcing Model group

CC

At our April 25th meeting Ian I., Ian W., Marko, Boaz, Marc, Tom, Harry, Kirstin volunteered to convene as a subgroup to think through the issues and define our Resourcing Model for FOLIO.

Action item: Tom and Boaz take the leading roles in founding the new sub group

Other Business

Next Meeting July 25th - Nail down WOLFcon CC Meetings/Agendas

Chat 

Von Ian Walls an alle 04:26 PM
PostgreSQL is NOT Apache licensed
neither is nginx, which is often used as the web server for staff client
Von Marc Johnson an alle 04:30 PM
Indeed. I believe the client libraries are very permissibly licensed
I think an important distinction (which I would have said if I’d remembered to unmute) is that the server and client are different
Von Mike Gorrell an alle 04:34 PM
The Tech Council looked into this issue at the time Elastic Search announced its intention to change license models... FWIW: 2021-01-20 Meeting Notes

Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:37 PM
Has Elastic declared what license they will issue?
Von Harry an alle 04:38 PM
Elastic did issue their new licenses
Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:38 PM
providers?

Von Harry an alle 04:38 PM
And all new code is being released under those new licenses

Von Ian Ibbotson an alle 04:38 PM
https://www.elastic.co/what-is/opensearch

Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:40 PM
So is there no practical difference for FOLIO from a licensing standpoint? And it’s just picking the best fork?

Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:44 PM
Yes @Ian. Agreed. AWS domination is a worry
And “elastic license” also raises great concerns. Blech.

Von Boaz Nadav Manes (Lehigh) an alle 04:47 PM
I may have not known a history but have we ever agreed in principal that all software providers and software reliant on FOLIO has to be open source under the same license?

Von Harry an alle 04:50 PM
Yes, we did, many years 
There was alot of research 
Many months actually
I just don't see how we can 
Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:50 PM
I think it’s worth chartering a group coming from both cc and tc to analyze this.
Von Boaz Nadav Manes (Lehigh) an alle 04:50 PM
Yes
Von Marc Johnson an alle 04:50 PM
At the very least it has to be compatible with Apache 2 in order not to breach the Apache 2 license
Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:51 PM
1. Make a recommendation
2. Document our policy / prectice

Von Marc Johnson an alle 04:52 PM
I suspect if we did analysis 
Von Simeon Warner (he/him) an alle 04:52 PM
(including documenting any current exceptions)
Same as Marc!
Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:54 PM
We shouldn’t prejudge the analysis. If EBSCO or another contributor has strong opinions, they should be factored into the discussion
Go Ian!
Is Vince on TC?
Von Ian Walls an alle 04:55 PM
I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of open source licenses, and would be willing to contribute

Von Marc Johnson an alle 04:57 PM
Julian initiated the change 
Von Ian Ibbotson an alle 04:58 PM
thankyou all for that :)
Von Ian Walls an alle 04:58 PM
Koha is GPLv3, and supports Elasticsearch
Von Jesse Koennecke (he/him) an alle 04:59 PM
I believe Koha uses, or can use, Elasticsearch.
Beat me to it, Ian W.
Von Tom Cramer an alle 04:59 PM
Now every index convo can have *three* candidates: solr,  es and now open search. 😁