Slashdot Mirror
MySQL CEO Interview
someonewhois writes "MySQL's CEO, Marten Mickos, says 'Open source & MySQL will rise, legal foes will fall', in a bold prediction that legal issues will continue to be ignored as a threat towards open source, and that software patents will harm the industry (well, duh)."
get in line...
MySQL is still implementing functionality common twenty years ago. And many of their enhancements of the last few years have left major gaps (innodb/replication awkwardness, etc).
Additionally, they still haven't addressed their problem with silent exceptions (quietly truncating strings that don't fit, quietly converting numbers that don't fit, allowing invalid dates, etc, etc).
So, yeah, it would be nice for them to pick up some OORDBMS functionality that postgesql has like spatial awareness, ip functions, etc - but I hope that they clean the product up first instead.
Also supports views and has limited procedure support.
Just don't try to get more than 20 people using it at the same time. MySQL wins in that area, and ONLY in that area.
Oh, and there's the entire Microsoft/Open Source deal. I'm really surprised more people just don't go with PostgreSQL or any other open source RDBMS that actually has a featureset comparable to commercial RDBMSs. I don't care if your RDBMS has things like replication support, support for multiple databases, etc., because as a small applications developer, I'll probably never use them. But if it takes you 5 versions just to implement views, your product is a joke.
And I really think that the OS community needs to realize this.
I know what he's saying.
That's not the way most people see it. If someone's making money off it, it's a good thing.
They don't think about the harm to competition or chill effects or anything so abstract.
What I'm saying, is you have to show, with actual numbers, who's losing money because of software patents, or how end-users are getting screwed.
Eolas v MSFT would be a really good example of frivolous patents hurting the industry, arguably one of the best. Of course slashdotters cant see past their anti-MS zealotry so it won't get a lot of playtime.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
"There's a fine line that needs to be walked when it comes to software patents. Either extreme will stunt growth."
Indeed, and that fine line is: allowing them.
"On the one extreme[...]"
sw patents are hopelessly borked. You can not patch the process up to be sure you only have high quality true software-innovations, and the whole idea of it is flawed in the first place, because software is akin to writing recipes, and it should be governed by copyright, not patents. and thirdly, patents are monopolies given by the state, because it is supposed to stimulate further innovation: all neutral research thusfar has indicated that it doesn't do that, on the contrary.
"On the other extreme[...]"
No, it won't. You seem to ignore the fact that, when software started with it's boom, there WERE NO sw patents. In fact, it can be reasonably argumented that it was just because they didn't existed at the time, that software knew such a high flight. Time and money isn't spend to produce new sw technologies; it is increasingly diverted to the legal departement of the companies. Companies that are flexible and can adapt will survive just fine without sw patents, rest assured.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---