# Recent Elastic.co licensing change announcment **URL:** \ **Category:** General Feedback\ **Created:** [January 14, 2021, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.opensearch.org/t/recent-elastic-co-licensing-change-announcment/4583 "2021-01-14T17:57:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 40
**Author:** ![igorid70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@igorid70](https://forum.opensearch.org/u/igorid70)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2021, 7:34pm UTC](https://forum.opensearch.org/t/recent-elastic-co-licensing-change-announcment/4583/40 "2021-01-21T19:34:46Z")
> [@Tom1](#): > > Their evaluation says, that there is no exception for the described use case, since the paragraph “Offering the Program as a Service” does not describe what you are saying I also work for a large SW company with our own legal department and their statement was exactly the same - using Elasticsearch is not an option anymore and we are migrating to Opendistro. The Intellectual property advisor that I was in contact about the changes said that the blog, comments of Elastic employees swearing that our use case is permitted (we use ES on customers sites as a service but only internally without letting anyone outside of our company connect) and FAQ section is simply meaningless. The only text which matters is the official license which leaves so much space for uncertainty and for a few billions company a doubt in this case simply means no doubt - Elasticsearch should be replaced by its Apache 2.0 alternative if available. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.opensearch.org/t/recent-elastic-co-licensing-change-announcment/4583)._