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Comment by blacklight | Hacker News Reader

While I really like their lightweight, SQL-like protocol instead of Elasticsearch's fat JSON, I really think that this project could have much more impact if it could be a drop-in replacement for ES.

Even if it offers only a fraction of the features offered by ES, that may be fair enough for at least half of the use-cases out there.

Sonic could have really had a strong selling point: "Use an ES-alternative that works fine in most of the real-world applications, but it's written in Rust and it only takes a fraction of the memory footprint required by ES, and it shouldn't require you to change your application code".

Instead, they are proposing yet another search protocol, that developers have to learn and adopt. That definitely increases the adoption barriers.

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Since Elastic spitefully patched all of their client libraries to fail if the server is not a "genuine" ES server, I don't see what good a drop-in replacement with protocol compatibility would do.

Go client: https://github.com/elastic/go-elasticsearch/blob/3985f2a1554...

Python client: https://github.com/elastic/elasticsearch-py/commit/e72aa3e24...

Is it prohibited to include `X-Elastic-Product: Elasticsearch` in the output of your server if the user instructs the server to do so? :)

I don't see how they can legally have any control over what a 3rd party's software outputs. And more importantly, how would they even enforce such restrictions?

I believe Elasticsearch is a trademark.

Are HTTP headers important or even relevant at all for branding trademark purposes?

Such a concern seems utterly ridiculous.

If it really does work this way, then we're all doomed.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1114254/why-do-all-brows...

If its use is so widespread, then it's probably no longer a trademark, in that context at least.

A trademark does not forbid people from using a name, it only restricts how it can be used in marketing. I do not see how that would be applicable here.

I imagine AWS can't put it on the headers of their managed service, and that's what it's about.

AWS has a compatibility mode that allows your cluster to report its version as 7.10.

same thing nintendo did on old consoles: the "DRM" was requiring the cartridge to display a nintendo logo at start-up. so if you included that, you could get sued.

my guess is because it's "X-Elastic-Product" you'd be falsely "saying" your product is made by Elastic, the company so they could sue over it.

Those libraries are open source, just nuke those restrictions and you're good to go. Is it the best way? Maybe not, but it's better than modifying your server responses (and in the worst 1984 case, allowing Elastic to sue you), if you develop such a tool you can always put that distinction in your README.

ElasticSearch is so much more than search. Sonic is very minimal in comparison, so a drop in replacement doesn't work here.

But yes, Sonic could replace lots of use cases.

Although not exactly the same, Elastic has an SQL query syntax which can be used now as well.

https://www.elastic.co/what-is/elasticsearch-sql

They’ve had it for a long time already. Was using it over a year and a half ago. Not really “new”

In fairness, the comment you're replying to didn't say it was new.

It's probably fairly easy to write an adapter here.

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