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)."

Comments

A little too bold....

[AtariAmarok]

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.

Re:A little too bold....

[dcrocha]

Bill: Marten, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the database world.
Marten: I'll never join you.
Bill: I am your father.
Marten: No. That's not true. That's impossible.
Bill: Search your feelings you know it to be true.
Marten: Nooooo. Nooooo.
Bill: Yes I am.
Marten: Ok then.

2 relevant sententces out of 38

[kpharmer]

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.

Software patents

[stratjakt]

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.

Re:Software patents

[kpharmer]

MySQL certainly has a lot to fear from software patents: it's a commercial company that could be easily sued.

And it's just now implementing functionality that other vendors put into their products 10-20 years ago. Many of these vendors have patents that cover some of the better approaches.

Any idea which dbms patents mysql is stepping on most blatently? Does oracle have multi-version-consistency patented?

Re:Software patents

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think you're missing the point: he's saying (and I agree) that software patents harm the industry as a whole. Anything that benefits a few monolithic closed-source software providers like Oracle over many open-source providers like MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc. -- and please no "my DB can beat up your DB" flames, okay? -- is bad for the industry in general, no matter how many MiGs they enable Larry Ellison to buy.

Ignore legal issues?

[nurb432]

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..

Geographic Information Systems

[SsShane]

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.

Re:Geographic Information Systems

[kpharmer]

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.

Wait, wait, you're joking...

[rhaas]

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.

uh, Hemos..

[froggero1]

from the dept.

what department would that be exaclly?

Valid points

[Just Some Guy]

Why must any application that uses MySQL be GPL unless a commercial license is obtained from MySQL AB?

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.