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You are right. AWS did not acquire the DuckDB technology itself, which is MIT-licensed open source and governed by the DuckDB Foundation which holds most of the related IP [1]. What they did acquire is DuckLabs, the Amsterdam-based services and development company behind the technology which is owned by and employs the creators and major contributors. And MotherDuck is a US-based venture-funded commercial company, whose cloud-based data platform is centered around DuckDB but has been significantly expanded recently, including Python pipelines, an agentic context layer, and a visualisation layer. [1]: https://duckdb.foundation/ [2] https://ducklabs.com/ [3] https://motherduck.com/

This is an important distinction, I hope the title can be changed. I was really surprised when I first came across DuckDB at how good at it is for its target use cases. It is a game changer for me for the "local analytics" space, and its ability to scale up to a large degree helps a lot. It is simply awesome to be able to point DuckDB at a mess of CSV and other files and have an instant database on top of it that I can run regular SQL over, and it is fast and just works.

Not sure why the submitter changed the title from the page: "DuckLabs to Join AWS, Projects to Remain Open Source"

Fixed above. Thanks!

you raised a good point but (et al) didn't touch on the meaningful questions: where does the "core team" of developers of DuckDB now reside? are they now "captured/cashing-in/getting paid" at AWS, or will meaningful MIT-licensed development of DuckDB continue in a robust way outside of commercial enterprises with proprietary needs that are not aligned with where the project was going?