In response to Elastic's decision to relicense Elasticsearch and Kibana under a dual license scheme, AWS and the open-source community initiated the OpenSearch project by forking the last Apache2-licensed versions of these tools. This endeavor involved a meticulous cleanup of proprietary code and branding elements to ensure a pure open-source foundation under the Apache 2.0 license. OpenSearch quickly progressed from its Alpha release in April 2021 to a feature-complete Beta version, with the goal of achieving general availability by July 2021. The project emphasizes a transparent governance model and community involvement, with AWS committing to shared governance and open contributions. With strong initial support and interest from companies looking to replace Elasticsearch, OpenSearch aims to provide a viable open-source alternative while fostering a collaborative community to drive its future development.