Amazon and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been involved with open source for a very long time, but now they have started to play a very proactive role in the open source community. Earlier this year, they put their weight behind a fork of Redis that was created after Redis changed its license, distancing itself from the long-standing community that had helped build the project.

At the recent Open Source Summit, AWS announced OpenSearch, a new open source project that was contributed to the Linux Foundation. I once again had the opportunity to sit down with David Nalley, Director of Open Source Strategy and Marketing at AWS, to discuss AWS’s long-standing use and contributions to open source since 2006, including projects like Cedar, Firecracker, and Bottlerocket.

“Amazon operates a variety of businesses, but from an AWS perspective, we’ve been involved in open-source for the past seven years. Long before I joined the company, there were efforts to simplify contributions. Today, most software engineers at AWS can contribute to open source (submit patches and bug fixes) with almost no approval process. If it’s under an open-source license and something we’re using, they can easily improve it. This change has reduced friction, but now we want to accelerate our ability to contribute to upstream open-source projects,” said Nalley.

Nalley highlighted AWS’s significant contributions to PostgreSQL, making it the number one reviewer of patches, and its work on the Rust programming language. Nalley also mentioned the launch of the OpenSearch Foundation, a fork of Elasticsearch due to a license change, and its governance structure under the Linux Foundation. He emphasized AWS’s commitment to maintaining high standards for open source definitions, especially in the context of generative AI.

AWS’s open source strategy and marketing update

• Nalley talks about AWS’s long-standing use of open source since 2006, including the use of Apache Tomcat for S3.
• Nalley highlights the recent increase in AWS-released open source software, such as Cedar, Firecracker, and Bottlerocket.

AWS’s contributions to Open Source projects

• Nalley discusses AWS’s contributions to PostgreSQL, including a dedicated team for upstream PostgreSQL and recent improvements like fixing issues related to glib C for better portability.
• Nalley mentions AWS’s role as the number three largest contributor of code and the number one reviewer of patches in the PostgreSQL community.
• Nalley talks about AWS’s work on the Rust programming language, similar to the PostgreSQL setup, with a dedicated team improving stability and performance.
• Nalley discusses the challenges of defining open source in the context of generative AI (GenAI)  and the importance of maintaining a high standard for open source AI definitions.

Open Source AI and AWS’s approach

• Nalley explains AWS’s cautious approach to open source AI, emphasizing the need for a clear definition and avoiding confusion for customers.
• Nalley mentions AWS’s use of open source tools like OpenRewrite for automating Java code transformations and the importance of maintaining compatibility and performance.
• Nalley highlights the importance of open governance and development in the open source community, beyond just open source licenses.
• Nalley discusses the sensitivity of data and the challenges of defining open source in the context of AI, comparing it to the early days of open source software.

Valkey and the Open Source community

• Nalley discusses the Valkey project, a fork of Redis due to a license change, and its rapid progress and community involvement.
• Nalley highlights the performance improvements in Valkey, including significant performance gains for large databases and the ability to handle a million requests per second.
• Nalley emphasizes the importance of the open source community in driving the project’s development and maintaining backwards compatibility.
• Nalley discusses the beauty of open source and the collaboration between competitors in the development of Valkey.

OpenSearch Foundation and AWS’s role

• Nalley announces the launch of the OpenSearch Foundation, a fork of Elasticsearch due to a license change, and its governance structure under the Linux Foundation.
• Nalley explains the importance of mutual governance and independence from arbitrary decision-making by a single company.
• Nalley highlights the involvement of AWS, SAP, and Uber as premier members and the transition to normal governance patterns expected from the Linux Foundation.
• Nalley discusses the independence and neutrality of open source foundations and their role in ensuring community-driven decision-making.

Nalley on the future of Open Source

• Nalley expresses his excitement about the future of open source and the importance of maintaining a high standard for open source definitions.
• Nalley discusses the importance of community involvement and the role of open source foundations in ensuring neutrality and independence.

Guest: David Nalley (LinkedIn)
Company: AWS (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk