Slashdot Mirror
MySQL and SCO Join Forces
matchboy writes "CNET is reporting that MySQL and SCO have signed a partnership to work on "joint certification, marketing, sales, training and business development work for a version of the database for SCO's new OpenServer 6 version of Unix." Why would MySQL decide to work directly with a company that has deemed the GPL as unconstitutional?"
Dollars always trumps the Constitution. Haven't you been paying attention to recent politics?
Reminder: Apple owns 1/255th of the internet.
Why would MySQL decide to work directly with a company that has deemed the GPL as unconstitutional?"
...because MySQL stands to make money off of this?
I dunno...just a guess.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Why, oh, why would MySql risk their reputation knowing how SCO looks to the entire open source community?
I imagine nobody is happier to hear this that PostgreSQL. Their popularity is about to skyrocket as countless OSS projects look for alternatives to MySQL.
they risk a large-scale negative reaction in order to attempt a push into a small, dying market niche.
as i have pointed out on groklaw, the companies running dbms on their unixware/openserver boxes will likely stick with their dbms when they move to another *nix.
companies hate switching dbms because it can get very messy very fast.
sum.zero
Who cares? MySQL is one of the few open source companies that seems to be making the headlines doing business in the real world! Good for them!
Wow, this has got to be a coup for SCO, considering what a pariah SCO has become with the open-source community. Even if SCO is offering buckets of cash to MySQL, this seems a really ill-advised decision by the MySQL people.
You are judged by the company you keep.
Frankly I'm not sure I'd hire someone with any certification offered by SCO, mainly because it shows that the person doesn't know very much about the open-source community, and why open-source is so important. Poachers like SCO must not be tolerated, and I for one will not support or endorse them in any way if I can help it.
Going into partnership with SCO just after Novell has applied to freeze their funds with the intention of pillaging them via the courts is not the brightest of ideas.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
" before mysql starts it's baseless lawsuits similar to SCO's."
This is silly sensationalism. Its was probably ill advised on MySQL's part to sign a partnership with SCO at this point, but the chances this has anything to do with SCO's legal insanity against Linux are about zero. MySQL probably just had some money thrown their way to do integration work on SCO's product which lots of people still use and rely on. That product and the people working on it, unfortunate as they are, have little to do with the insanity of Darl McBride and his Linux witch hunt.
MySQL being a for profit organization they probably just wanted the business.
Chances are they will regret it because they will probably lose more users and customers than they will gain from the deal with SCO.
@de_machina
I don't know any current SCO employees, but I have always assumed that there were quite a few normal techies working away at SCO, trying their best to ignore the crap coming from management. I know I have often disagreed with the choices/directions of management in companies I have worked for (though, obviously not to the level of SCO's choices). Some of those people have probably stayed to continue their work, despite the behavior at the top.
So, what I'm rambling on about is that the OS side of the house is probably a reasonable group of people, trying to improve a Unix platform. The litigation side of the house is a bunch of worthless bastards. MySQL is working with the former.. even though it still required approval from the latter.
MySQL AB has given lots of people very useful software for free, for a long time.
Now we're supposed to hate them because of this deal?
My relationship with them has been one in which they give me free database software, don't restrict how I use it, and I give them nothing.
Even people who don't use MySQL themselves benefit from all of the dynamic web sites -- the WordPress blogs, the sites with threaded discussion boards, etc. Or from their ISPs being about to use MySQL for the backend of all sorts of critical services -- mail forwarding tables, etc.
It's like none of that matters without absolute orthodoxy on the part of MySQL AB. None of the good stuff matters, if they do one thing we don't like.
And one thing businesses do is make money.
One of the ways businesses make money is by offering goods or services.
Some of the goods and services MySQL AB has offered in the past include:
I haven't followed MySQL in awhile, but it seems like SCO is actually just buying into some kind of reseller program MySQL AB is offering and calling it a partnership, which is kind of like buying some routers from Cisco and saying Cisco is your business partner.
If someone walks into your store and tries to buy something, are you going to say no?
Some people do it for the principle of the thing. That's a big Open Source mentality, where have you been?
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Those companies will automatically accept deals and help from Operating systems vendors to port their products. Even if they don't like the vendor, they have no reason to dislike the customers with a mixed server population.
Just look at all the software sold to work with Windows. Microsoft is probably the most hated software company in the world -- and have given lots of CEOs personal reasons to hate their criminal behaviour.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
> > ... rather, it forces proprietary developers to use MySQL under the proprietary license.
> Nothing forces anybody to do anything.
I see you are intentionally misinterpretting my words. So, here is the long version:
It [the GPL + proprietary licensing scheme] forces proprietary developers, if they want to include MySQL in their application, and if they don't want to GPL their own application, to use MySQL under the proprietary license.
> So by your logic, the GPL license forces proprietary developers to ignore the product altogether?
Of course -- unless they are prepared to GPL their own code. That's what the license says. Or are you saying that no one is "forcing" them to obey the license?
> More license options means more choice, and choice is *good*.
What crap. You are intentionally misrepresenting the situation.
The dual licensing scheme used by MySQL and Trolltech _removes_ choice. It removes the choice of proprietary developers to use MySQL and Qt under an Open Source license. The LGPL license would have given them that choice.
Let's see what Richard Stallman had to say on this topic:
"Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it."
"Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Library GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library's features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Library GPL for that library."
"This is why we used the Library GPL for the GNU C library. After all, there are plenty of other C libraries; using the GPL for ours would have driven proprietary software developers to use another--no problem for them, only for us."
MySQL and Qt are available under proprietary licenses. Therefore, rather than GPLing their own code, proprietary developers will simply use the proprietary license.
In other words, MySQL's and Trolltech's use of the GPL, instead of the LGPL, produces exactly the opposite effect to what Stallman prefers. The dual licensing scheme, rather than increasing the amount of Free software, simply encourages proprietary developers to use the proprietary versions of the libraries.
> This is like the argument against the BSD license: but... but... someone could develop their own closed source app!
That statement is completely illogical. It does not follow from what I wrote.
I am concerned about people who choose to run applications A, B, and C, becoming locked in to the underlying middleware, without realizing it. It happened before with Windows, and it could happen again with MySQL and Qt.
What you are saying is the exact opposite to what I wrote. I said that they should have used the _LGPL_, which _allows_ proprietary developers to use the code.
The advantage for the rest of us is that anyone who uses those proprietary applications are only locked in to those applications. What they avoid is the _Network Lock-in_ to the underlying middleware, which is much worse.
As to your last paragraph, I have no idea what it has to do with my original post.
I am advocating for people to be careful about the software they use, and to think about the long-term effects of the licenses for that software.
If you call that trolling, then I have to wonder what your agenda is.
For some time now, I have been saying that MySQL is a lock-in scheme. It became obvious when MySQL switched from the LGPL license to the dual GPL + proprietary licenses. This does nothing to promote Open Source, rather, it forces proprietary developers to use MySQL under the proprietary license.
Another product that uses the GPL + proprietary lock-in licensing scheme is Qt, by Trolltech. They also use their GPL'd edition as a loss-leader, in order to promote sales of the proprietary edition of Qt.
Let me see if I get this right. If you use these libraries to develop free software you pay no money. If you use them develop proprietory software you pay money. In other words, you make money they make money, if you make no money they make no money. So what exactly is the problem again?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You got it wrong. If you develop GPLed Free Software, you pay no money. If you develop proprietary software (no matter if it is Freeware [i.e. free as in beer] or if you sell it) you have to pay. But if you want to develop Free/Open Source software under a GPL-incompatible OSS license, you're out of luck.
Now why does it matter for Qt/KDE, but not for, say, GIMP? Well, simple: KDE is infrastructure. It's in a similar position as the C library or the gcc runtime library (which even the FSF makes sure can be used for non-GPLed software alike without any problems). Every program which is intended to fit seamlessly into the KDE system basically has to link Qt. And thus you effectively lose the freedom of chosing your license for your code. The situation is different for GIMP: There's generally no need for a graphics program to directly interact with GIMP. Unless you explicitly want to change or add to GIMP, you need not be interested in the GIMP license. Normal code just isn't affected. But if KDE should become the standard desktop, you'll very much be forced to use Qt for your GUI programs (or your program will just not integrate nicely). That's why the standards here are different than from ordinary code.
I don't know how much the MySQL licensing affects other code. Can you write code using MySQL without being bound by the GPL (except by buying a proprietary license, of course)? If not, how standard is the interface (i.e. can you easily write code which would without change work e.g. on both MySQL and PostgreSQL)? If the answers to both questions are "No", then it's effectively a vendor lock-in as well, because again, a database is critical infrastructure for certain applications.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.