Feb 5 Fork Update

Stepping up: Elasticsearch & Kibana Fork
#1

This is going to be a little different than our previous updates. Today I want to give you a little deeper view into the forked repos and what’s going on rather than focusing on features or percentages.

Elasticsearch
Internally, the forked repo for Elasticsearch is called “search.” Trust us, the final names will be better than our current working names. Here is a tantalizing screenshot:

Github screen shot showing opendistro-for-elasticsearch/search
Let’s look at some git stats since the fork:

  • 33 commits
  • 10,868 files changed
  • 2,261 additions
  • 1,475,326 deletions (!)

Kibana
Much like the other fork, we have an extremely creative working name for the Kibana fork:
github screenshot showing opendistro-for-elasticsearch/website
The git stats since the fork:

  • 7 commits
  • 20,896 files changed
  • 1,261 additions
  • 3,092,541 deletions (!!)

So, all together we’re looking at 31,764 files changed, 3,522 additions, and 4,567,867 deletions. While it’s true this represents a heap of work, most of these numbers represent the cleaning out of entire directories of non-Apache 2.0 licensed code.

As with our update from Wednesday, this represents the status of the forking project a little after the midpoint. Keep in mind that this is the status as we see it today - we could easily turn over a rock on Monday that would make the project look like a more complicated, longer road.

Thanks for following along and we can’t wait until you can join in on this effort!

11 Likes
#2

As an external observer, this is unclear to me why this effort is not done in the open.
This does not look like a very good sign that the future community will be fully open.

I can understand that the elastic license v1 is revocable at any time from elastic.co and probably why your layers ask you to not distribute not cleaned up version.

If you go this path:

  • aren’t you already braking that license by storing your temporary version on github (technically distribute the code to github)
  • will you also cleanup the history, or start from initial commit?

I also understand lawyers are picky stating publicly an IP strategy, but please at least state that this is done for legal reasons.

1 Like
#3

It’s a decent question and we’ve talked a bit about this in our community meetings. I do know our legal department has been consulted on the action plan although I wasn’t part of these conversations personally and IANAL, so I don’t think it would be right to get into anything super specific. We’re providing a full history of our removals/modifications, so you’ll be able to see transparently what we did.

One thing I can speak to directly is the mission of the Open Distro project. One part of that is providing OSS licensed code. So, when we go public with this code, we’ll feel confident that it aligns with this mission.

As far as the questions of openness, we’ve talked and written about our plans as far as community, openness, and governance. I totally get talk is cheap and people in the broader community have been burned by similar statements recently. However, I’m confident that we’ll prove fears in this area unfounded over time.

Let me turn this around a bit - what would you like to see as an indicator that the future community will be fully open?

#4

what would you like to see as an indicator that the future community will be fully open?

Clearly have the project developed under the umbrella of a Foundation is the only way the future decisions will not be biased toward any company.
A board of directors would make the decisions for the project, with only one rep/vote allowed per company.
Having the chairman being independent from Amazon would definitely close any debate.

1 Like
#5

Name suggestion: Elasticium for search repo please! follows the Chromium path.

3 Likes
#6

Oh yeah. We’re not planning on the model we’re using now to last forever. The goal is to go for shared project governance.

These sort of things take time and work best with input from multiple parties. The general plan is this: release fork as beta, build community of contributors to work on the fork, release GA software, determine what governance model and foundation would fit the situation with the full input of the contributors.

4 Likes
#7

I really appreciate the updates, the respectful debate and the naming suggestions. I am sure there are a few of us standing by as this process works itself out, and ready to lend a hand when the time is right.

3 Likes
#8

Any ETA when the new names will be revealed?

#9

TBH, I wish I knew. Naming is super complicated - lawyers, lots of input, etc.

We’re short cutting the process greatly, typically this would be a long cycle activity, but we’ve got everyone on board to do it as fast as possible.

That being said, I specifically removed myself as me knowing provides little value and larger risks if I let it slip publicly :slight_smile:

#10

Am I right that the repos not go public before final names are chosen or do we get public repos with “search” and “website” once the technical stuff is finished?

#11

That’s currently undecided. It’s possible that we’ll release without a name, but I would guess it’s more likely that we’ll get a name and repos at the same time.

The priority is to release code ASAP, but it’s senseless to release the code w/o a name if the name will come 7 days later.

1 Like