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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)."
He'd better watch it before Bill Gates makes him an offer he can't refuse, and he wakes up with a penguin head in his bed.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Not much here:
What do you think was the top story in the Linux and open source arena in 2004?
Marten Mickos:None of the legal attacks on open source or Linux have been successful. None of that stuff has gone anywhere. That's the biggest story.
On that subject, MySQL has come to the conclusion that software patents will ultimately be demonstrated to be harmful to the industry. So, we are sponsoring a campaign in the European Union today to educate politicians and decision makers on the negative impact of software patents.
Will harm *him*, but they'll help, for instance, Oracle.
Both are in "the industry". So to make blanket statements like harm "the industry" fall on deaf ears.
If you want to bitch about patents in a meaningful way, at least show how they do harm, by preventing competition by giving one company an unfair advantage.
Also, it's in my opinion that it's only the frivolous patents that harm the industry. It's not the patent system itself that's wrong, it's the abuses of it. "Security holes" that need patching.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Postgre and Firebird are toys.
MySQL is like the playmobile activity center you put in an infants crib, so that one day when he sees a real database he won't be too scared of it.
Thats fine, when you are on the 'right' side of the suit..
Let him get hit with being the defendant on a few IP suits, and i bet he sings a different tune.. One of caution..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As a GIS geek that wants a solution that costs less than $10,000,000.23, I'm hoping that MySQL improves their spatial extensions. Right now I play with PostgreSQL w/PostGIS until MySQL can implement more robust projections (how geography is "laid flat" on a map for those who don't know). From what I gather, and I admit being new to open-source GIS solutions, PostgreSQL w/PostGIS extensions stomps all over MySQL at the moment, but I think it would be in their interest to improve as they have a nice business model and GIS is taking off.
Here we have the CEO of a company saying, basically, that his company is going to do well this year.
And just for making that unremarkable statement, he makes the Slashdot homepage?
News flash! It's the CEO's job to promote the company. They all do that. Even Darl.
what department would that be exaclly?
~/.sig: No such file or directory
And here I was expecting him to say "Hey, sell your shares, this company and this open source stuff is fucked." Well this is a relief.
Actually, MySQL is a lot more like shareware. For a real open source RDBMS, use PostgreSQL.
What part of "A well regulated militia" do you not understand?
"Does he really care about the industry?"
Maybe he does, and maybe he doesn't, but that's not the actual point. Even if he would turn out to be a greedy bastard who wanted to monopolise the entire industry (as MS does), the question remains if sw patents are a good idea or not.
Good isn't good for this or that corporation in the short term, but for society in the long term. After all, a patent is a monopoly given by the state, and the state is (supposed to do) what's good for their citizens. Ultimately, in a democracy, *we* define the state. So the question boils down to: is it a good thing for the populace as a whole?
As we all know, monopolies are never a good thing, and the only reason why it is given, is because it is supposed to stimulate further innovation. at least on sw patents enough studies have been done to indicate they don't do that at all, on the contrary.
Conclusion: it is NOT a good thing. (Even when a particular company might profit from it at a given time).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"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." ---
If you're asking "what legal reason is there?", then the answer is because they decided in their infinite wisdom to GPL the client libraries, which is a more restrictive policy than any of the commercial DBs impose as far as I know.
If you meant "why on Earth would they do that?", then I have no answer. They had to invent a stupid "FOSS License Exception" (see the above link for details) to allow popular non-GPL projects like PHP to offer MySQL support, and have basically removed any chance of commercial software support.
In a nutshell, if you want to use a database in your non-GPL project (whether Free or proprietary) then MySQL is a poor choice. They've already added huge client library restrictions by moving from the LGPL to the GPL, and I don't see any reason to believe that they won't drop the "FOSS License Exception" kludge in the future. Note that I like the GPL - it's a good license and I support its goals - but this seems like a wholly inappropriate place to use it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?