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!

It is not misleading at all. For all these softwares, the team that behind is the most important part rather than the software itself.

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?