Oracle Makes Commitments to Customers, Developers and Users of MySQL | Hacker News Reader

Oracle Makes Commitments to Customers, Developers and Users of MySQL

marketwire.com

23 pointshealsdata8 comments

I don't think it would be in Oracle's interest to do damage to MySQL. In the past MySQL attempted to grow up into Oracle range and largely failed. Likewise, nobody uses Oracle when they're throwing together the first many dozen iterations on a web app. Where I see the opportunity is using MySQL as part of their funnel to larger Oracle solutions by providing a smooth upgrade path.

This is an awesome rebuttal to what Monty posted over at: http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.htm...

I'm surprised to see a company as big as Oracle willing to play ball like this, but I'm glad. MySQL is/was the gold standard for years.

Probably good to note that Monty has added a response to his post:

"UPDATE: Oracle has made some public promises that only fixes this one issue marked with ( * ).

NOTE: Their promise to storage engines vendors is not future safe as it's a time-limited non-assertion (they promise to not sue for 5 years), but they could still sue one for using a storage engine with old code after the 5 years. They limited the promise to the storage engine API but not to other plugin API:s that almost every pluggable storage engine uses. They clarify this, Oracle should change this to be a license exception for all plugins and it should be valid perpetual with the released code. It's also unclear if this non-assertion is valid if the vendor makes extension to the interfaces (which most storage engines do)."

The item marked with ( * ) is "To release new MySQL versions in a regular and timely manner."

I feel for Monty in that his "baby" is now under the control of some other entity.

A couple of observations:

a) All of MySQL is currently available under the GPL, so any pure open source business model can take that and fork it and have the big fun.

b) It seems like all of the concern is Monty wanting to wrestle back control so he's assured of a non-"pure" open source business model (which MySQL used to generate revenue in the past. Specifically, licensing MySQL under a comercial, non-GPLed, license).

So what does this say about pure open source business models? Are they impossible? Do you always have to have some part that is not open source or a way to license it that way?

> a) All of MySQL is currently available under the GPL, so any pure open source business model can take that and fork it and have the big fun.

While this isn't Monty's concern, it is mine. I think it's quite possible to kill a GPL project. Not in a lawyery sense, but strictly by mismanagement. Maintaining a project like MySQL seems a rather big undertaking. I doubt anyone will take it if Oracle doesn't completely abandon it. That's a lot of leeway to just screw it up...

> b) It seems like all of the concern is Monty wanting to wrestle back control so he's assured of a non-"pure" open source business model (which MySQL used to generate revenue in the past. Specifically, licensing MySQL under a comercial, non-GPLed, license).

I'm generally not a fan of assigning someone an "evil" motive when other explanations do. It seems Monty is mostly concerned with people that have bought an enterprise license for MySQL, so they don't have to release their own source code when distributing binaries. Forks don't help these people.

He should just fork it and start a MontySQL. Done.

Yes go ahead and downvote and demonstrate how you don't understand that one of the points of the open source movement is redundancy in the availability of software. Forking open source code is one major way of ensuring longevity for software you want to use. If you don't like how Oracle is doing it (MySQL), don't complain, fork the software and make your own.

Monty was perfectly happy to take a billion dollars of Sun's shareholder's money for his company. At that point, he gave up any say in the matter. Monty, you could always buy MySQL back if you care that much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com