(Seattle, WA) - Sources inside Amazon Web Services (AWS) tell us that AWS is in the process of gearing up to launch a new service: Mimic. Focused on rapidly copying open-source projects and spinning up competitive services, Mimic started as an internal service at AWS and is behind AWS DocumentDB, ElasticSearch, and Elasticache (redis/memcached-as-a-service). "Mimic has been crucial to the success of AWS so far. We really feel it's been able to help us take ideas built by others and use them to brutally undercut them. But we're customer-obsessed, so, it's cool, you know?" said one AWS employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Open-core companies everywhere reacted in outrage. Many had been previously hit by AWS' practice of leveraging existing open-source technology and standing it up as a service. "They've been doing this for years and now they're just basically saying 'hey the water's warm - hop right in!'", said an employee at MongoDB. Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure both refused to commit to using the service at press time. When reached for comment about blatant efforts to profit off open-source, AWS CEO Andy Jassy smiled and shrugged.