Amazon to Acquire DuckLabs, Adding the Team Behind DuckDB (geekwire.com) 16
Amazon has agreed to acquire DuckLabs, bringing the team behind the popular open-source DuckDB database into AWS. "The deal fits Amazon's broader push to turn S3, its flagship cloud storage service, into a place where customers analyze data rather than just store it," reports GeekWire. "It gives Amazon a team experienced in building fast, lightweight analytics software that runs directly against data sitting in cloud storage." The DuckDB project itself will remain free and open source under the MIT license, overseen by the independent DuckDB Foundation. From the report: Employees of DuckLabs will join Amazon Web Services, including co-founders and DuckDB creators Hannes Muhleisen and Mark Raasveldt, who will continue leading the team and setting the project's technical direction. They will remain based in Amsterdam, where the team will continue developing DuckDB and related projects. [...] Financial terms were not disclosed. Amazon said it has signed a definitive agreement and expects the acquisition to close shortly. DuckLabs said it expects to become part of AWS in early September. Jordan Tigani, the CEO of MotherDuck, which sells a cloud service built on DuckDB, sees Amazon's acquisition as a predictable move to turn DuckDB's growing popularity into an AWS business. "That's Amazon's playbook, after all: wait until an open source project gets big enough, then launch it as a service," he wrote in a blog post, adding that "they're not acquiring Duck Labs just because they love open source."
Tigani also believes the deal could ultimately strengthen DuckDB, since Amazon has an incentive to keep the project open and widely adopted: "If DuckDB becomes the standard, it is going to drive a lot more compute on their infrastructure, which is where they make their money."
Tigani also believes the deal could ultimately strengthen DuckDB, since Amazon has an incentive to keep the project open and widely adopted: "If DuckDB becomes the standard, it is going to drive a lot more compute on their infrastructure, which is where they make their money."
MIT License (Score:4, Informative)
DuckDB is under the MIT license [github.com], so they can do whatever they want going forwards, though ofc you can still fork.
Anyone who didn't want this to happen but contributed anyway shot their own foot.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd say this looks 100% lucky. This could have been bought out by a company that made it proprietary. It could have turned out that DuckDB became an open core / key features proprietary nightmare like so many companies that decide they have to monetize. Instead it's likely that this will remain available and free and that contributors that wrote parts of it will still get useful credit and be able to continuing developing.
There can be much worse consequences of failing to make sure the software you are cont
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Amazon is only taking over DuckDB in smaller bites, eventually they will get the entire thing because some goomer in AWS can get a promotion or greater wealth by doing it.
Mergers and Acquisitioning their way (Score:2)
Re: Mergers and Acquisitioning their way (Score:3)
Because apparently we need to protect the poor little billionaires while us peons starve in the streets. We should protect them with pitchforks and torches.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Because Wall St demands growth, and the C-suite only keep their jobs if they provide it.
Of course, after a point, the only way a company can meet the growth expectations is by absorbing other companies.
Eventually, the company can't meet the growth expectations, so the share price falls and the company either fails and/or is bought up by another to meet their own growth expectations.
Welcome to capitalism.
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Re: (Score:2)
This isn't capitalism. It's closer to mercantilism.
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into a bigger monopoly - why is this still legal?
Firstly Amazon does not have a monopoly in anything, and having a monopoly is not illegal, using your market power anti-competitively is.
As to why this merger is legal, why wouldn't it be? Amazon isn't buying out a direct competitor, so this acquisition wouldn't trigger any competition concerns.
Duck Labs, DuckDB (Score:2)
They're building quite the Duck Dynasty.
The next open/elasticsearch (Score:2)
~nt~
Why can't the USA innovate? (Score:2)
As usual the USA has once again demonstrated that it can't innovate and once again needs to buy out EU (Amsterdam in this case) companies to stay competitive in the tech space. /s
Well only partially /s. The USA has an impressive innovation record. But I want this story to serve as a fuck you to those people who constantly say the EU doesn't and can't innovate, whereas the reality is that tech majors are built off the backs of innovation from around the globe.
Popular open-source DuckDB database (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
My thought as well.
Sure enough,
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Duck... [duckduckgo.com]
most of us don't need it.
"OLAP". Now there's a name I've not heard in a long time.