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The Ups and Downs of MySQL AB
Wannabe Code Monkey writes "Forbes has an article about a recent MySQL deal with SCO and the reaction from the open source community: "It's been a rough week for Marten Mickos, the chief executive of open source database maker MySQL AB. First his most dreaded rival, Oracle acquired a company that supplies a key piece of MySQL's software, a move that could make life difficult for Uppsala, Sweden-based MySQL, which has the most popular open source database. If that wasn't bad enough, Mickos is being denounced as a traitor by noisy fanatics in the open source software community because last month he dared to make a deal with SCO Group, a company reviled by fans of Linux and other open source software.""
If that wasn't bad enough, Mickos is being denounced as a traitor by noisy fanatics in the open source software community because last month he dared to make a deal with SCO Group, a company reviled by fans of Linux and other open source software."
Next on Forbes: How much negativity can we pack into one sentence? Find out!
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510112 11450706
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* no money went to SCO from MySQL, so MySQL is not supporting SCO financially
* it was SCO seeking out the partnership, not the other way around
* MySQL had stopped supporting SCO in 2004
* MySQL did not put out the press release about the partnership. Mickos did provide a quotation for the press release however. Here's the press release in question, taken from MySQL's web site. http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/news/article
If taking SCO's money is what keeps the product viable, and if the final product is still F/OSS, who really gives a hoot? SCO's money spends just as easy as anything else, and the OSS community hasn't lost anything.
We don't live in a world of moral absolutes. Businesses sometimes have to be practical at the expense of muddying the moral waters. I'm sure that if they could have avoided even taking SCO's calls they would have, but taking the money enables them to be a going concern.
Besides, the more SCO spends, the faster they will inevitably go out of business, so that can only be a good thing, right?
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Gosh, SCO have not run out of money yet? I thought the Web site implied they have: http://www.linuxstolescocode.com/ (hint: see error page).
My Linux - (L)ove (I)s (N)ever (U)tterly eXPensive
Oracle acquired Innobase, maker of InnoDB.
Ironically, if Oracle insisted that future supported versions of InnoDB only be released as a GPL'd work - it could be one of the greates things for MySQL-the-GPL'd-product and one of the worst things to MySQL-the-company.
Although InnoDB is quite a niece piece of work, I wouldn't call it a key piece of the MySQL server software. It is just one of the *many* storage backends supported by MySQL, and it's not by far the most used (99% of the MySQL installs i've seen only use the internally developped MyISAM storage engine which btw is the default one ...
...
And btw, people who need transactions and advanced features tend to use postgresql instead of mysql+innodb
MySQL AB has all the licenses to MySQL.
They release it under a dual license.
Now they're accepting SCO money to "partner" with them to develop MySQL so it works better on SCO's server software.
Now, do a quick search for SCO & IBM & "Project Monterey". See the parallels? And SCO has sued THREE partners/customers over code use.
The question will come down to what contracts cover what money being spent in what ways to write what code and who owns what rights to what code.
Personally, I see this as just a way for SCO go try to get possession of the MySQL code base. Only an idiot would sign a developmental contract with SCO after everything that's been revealed from the court cases.
I don't give a damn about his points, they are irrelevant.
.. How do we know they will not try to pull a stunt of saying MySQL stole ideas or misappropriated their money to incorporate new features into MySQL?
.. so is the Linux suit .. and once they lose that they need another scam to pump up their stock. Sorry they had to sign a deal with the devil. This company SCO has declared in the past that they don't think the GPL is a legally valid document. To me it's simply not worth it to deal with the hassle. Honestly as much as I hate their companies I rather use Oracle *puke* or Microsoft SQL Server *vomit* than MySQL at this point, because i dont have to worry about being sued.
Since SCO paid money to MySQL and offered development assistance to MySQL
This is my biggest concern. I no longer feel safe using MySQL. There is now a risk of getting sued by SCO down the line. Anyone who thinks this is not far fetched
Fortunately we don't have to choose commercial because we have great alternative open source databases we can use. Sorry MySQL it's time for us to say goodbye.
I honestly don't know anyone who could actually say that with a straight face.
LAMP becomes LAPP
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
He made up his mind a long time ago. Do a search on google for "daniel lyons" fud.
You can pretty much dismiss claims made by him, Laura Didio and Rob Enderle.
"It was classic Groklaw, ripe with paranoia and nonsensical conspiracy theories, and replete with loads of self-righteous huffing and puffing about morality."
Hello Pot? This is Kettle.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
If the community decides MySQL is now the work of the devil, it's not like there aren't other solutions out there, among them just using current MySQL versions. The project will just branch off from the last open source release before the switch to Evil Commercialization (TM). The license does support this, doesn't it? I must confess, I'm not exactly sure what license MySQL uses for it's releases.
There are also plenty of other SQL options out there. Postgres is one I use for various things, and I've found it to be more powerful and more effecient than MySQL. The only drawback is that alot of apps out of the box don't support it.
Of course, that would change if everyone stopped using MySQL.
That's one thing I love about open source: The power of choice
The article's author is just spouting more of his standard nonsense. Lyons doesn't get free software and he's pissed at those of us who do get it. Clicking on a link to a Lyons article never seems to justify the effort spent on the click.
Don't like Microsoft? Well wait till Larry Ellison starts playing hardball. This man is ruthless and there aren't many people who disagree with that statement. His goal is to be the richest man in the world. Gates is still just a nerd at heart. MySQL only indirectly competes with Microsoft. But MySQL is directly competing with Oracle. Sooner or later they will probably find themselves in the gun-sites of Larry and it won't be pretty.
MySQL knows this and that's why they recently declared that they never intend to go after Oracle's customer base. Because they know if they even so much as think about it Larry will eat them for lunch.
> Although InnoDB is quite a niece piece of work, I wouldn't call it a key piece of the MySQL server ...
...
> software. It is just one of the *many* storage backends supported by MySQL, and it's not by far
> the most used (99% of the MySQL installs i've seen only use the internally developped MyISAM
> storage engine which btw is the default one
I think that's primarily due to all the legacy 3.* mysql databases out there: not because people are running 4.01 and want to keep using myisam.
There are legitimate times to use myisam, but aside from read-only reporting (which mysql isn't very good at), or very high-volume read-mostly content management that's about it. Backends for tools like bugzilla, for wikis, etc should be on innodb:
- it's easier to develop the app (don't have to reinvent transactions)
- the application code is more portable
- you avoid data corruption problems problems with buggy do-it-yourself transaction code
- you get to rely on declarative referential integrity to help ensure that 100% of the data in the database complies with the rules of the model
> And btw, people who need transactions and advanced features tend to use postgresql instead of mysql+innodb
true - anyone who knows enough about databases to know why they should be using transactions also knows why they should be using views, stored procedures (occasionally), triggers (occasionally), and have an optimizer capable of joining 5 tables without a performance hit.
If mysql looses innodb they are in very deep trouble. Before they licensed innodb, MySQL AB insisted that:
- 99% of the programmers didn't need transactions
- that "real programmers" could easily write that code themselves in the app layer
- that all quality checks (pk/fk constraints) belonged in the app layer anyway
Once they licensed innodb they changed that tune completely
- declaring themselves an "Enterprise Database"
- the only database people needed
- bragged about their fast paced development (even tho it was purchasing not development)
- buried all their previous comments about transactions not being necessary
So, now that they've been admitting that transactions are vital - won't they look stupid loosing them? At that point, why put *any* database on mysql? Postgresql/Firebird/SQLite are all *freer* anyway. And it isn't like MySQL is going to suddenly come up with a replacement to Innodb - that's the code they couldn't write themselves before, it's the most complex code in mysql, and they apparently don't have people capable of writing it.
The problem that MySQL DB is having right now is that it's too dependent on one company: MySQL AB. And that company is proving that it is not stable enough to count on.
If I were a MySQL DB user, I would be planning for an outcome that did not require MySQL AB, because the company might not be in the same form a year from now. Possibly even choose something else that has a stronger community behind it, or at least a stronger company behind it.
MySQL has a big community, but it's organized not around itself, but around MySQL AB. That may have to change.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Dear MySQL,
Ever since you and joined forces, my PostgreSQL hosting and consulting business has gone up. On top of that, several existing customers have begun asking how they can migrate their applications from MySQL to PostgreSQL. While I am happy to hear that you finally got yourself some stored procedures and other advanced features... it saddens me that you're doing business with a company (SCO) that thinks that one of your business models is unconstitutional. You are tainted now. However, I really just wanted to say thanks for the extra work that have you provided me. It's no secret that being a professional PostgreSQL consultant is going to be a highly valuable skill in the coming few years...there is already a shortage. Thanks for sending people to the world's most advanced open source database server!
Former MySQL fan,
Me
Robby Russell
PLANET ARGON
Robby on Rails
Hmm, I'm sure this guy isn't working from an agenda, he is definitely not thinking from some squewed hair brained bias, then again....
Oh, so thats what it is to demand money from people so they can keep what is rightfully theirs. And here I thought the correct term for demanding money from people to leave them alone was extortion. And looking back through history it seems the hard working people of this planet usually get pretty steamed up over extortion and have taken down or defied criminal and governmental organizations who commited extortion crimes. And I do believe that extortion is still a crime so SCO is not "drumming up trouble" they are running an extortion racket.
burnin
But here's a great solution: mysql could use postgresql for its transaction layer.
An interesting point. One might wonder what it is that MySQL brings to the table if that happened though. Presumably, MySQL would bring nothing other than backwards compatibility with old applications. People would be jumping from MyGreSQL (or whatever this would be called) to the real PostgreSQL as fast as they could.
On the other hand...doesn't SQLite now support transactions & MVCC? And along these lines, could mysql pick up greater scalability by using db2 & oracle as storage layers as well?
MySQL has a commercial version to support. They can't charge someone a license fee and tell them to go elsewhere for a good storage engine. Anything in their GPL version needs to be in their commercial version. Therefore the only kind of code they can include is BSD-like, like PostgreSQL.
I guess they could have some kind of loosely-coupled interface that used another RDBMS as a backend, but again, what does MySQL provide? It would just be a SQL translator. It would be unable to optimize, plan, or execute queries, so that leaves what? Parsing? And then it's re-parsed by the other DB engine? That certainly won't impress anyone.
When a product gets to the point where it's ONLY possible value is backwards compatibility, people port the applications away quickly. [ insert MS Windows joke here * ]
* MS Windows doesn't really compare, since it's easy to replace a set of MySQL servers with a set of PostgreSQL servers, but not easy to replace a few hundred million installations of MS Windows.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Agreed. But when SCO starts making money through this partnership and then turns around and uses that cash to attack the same community that SCO despises, does that make any sense?
SCO not only burned bridges, they set the entire landscape on fire. For a leading player in the F/OSS movement to then hook up with them is very disturbing. Should we expect MySQL developers to suddenly be paid by SCO? What would SCO expect in return?
When I heard the news, I sent an email to MySQL telling them that I thought they were treading on very dangerous ground. If MySQL was surprised by the reaction of the community then maybe they really don't understand their base of support. I kind of feel that way anyway, since last I looked the only way to give them any money is to buy a license. I'd gladly click on a "Donate using PayPal" link and have suggested that they provide a paid club that people can sign up for to help support the cause, but so far neither has appeared.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
MySQL AB (the company behind MySQL) will just modify some code to add SCO Unix support. I mean, MySQL has windows support, Apache has Windows support, and Windows is "teh evil", so?
/. crowd remains silent about this. So, they're not scandalized about this dual licensing issue and the touchy circumstances , and what "linking" means regarding this (any legal info would be appreciated). But oh, MySQL modifies some code to add SCO Unix support, and the world as we know it is disappearing suddenly?.
A much more important matter is Oracle buying InnoBase. (hint: InnoBase != MySQL AB). But then again, InnoDB is GPL. So, as long as they're GPL, we can still use them for GPL products.
Now the REALLY scary thing is this dual licensing stuff and MySQL requiring you to buy a license for MySQL if your product is not GPL. I'm still confused regarding the legal interpretation of it, this is a very scary issue, and the
I don't give a **** of what MySQL AB does with SCO (the GPL won't change, will it?). What worries me is the future of InnoDB and if i'll be able to use a MySQL client in my non-gpl'ed, for-profit (i.e. to earn a living) C++ or Python software without having to fear lawsuits from MySQL AB...
In fact, I think there should be an article on this subject (not that I've STFW'ed, but links would be appreciated).
I can only assume you grossly misused PostgreSQL or some other software on the machine. PostgreSQL has a legendary reputation for reliability and stability, which has held up perfectly for me for years (no postgresql failures ever).
And if a disk crashes, you can hardly blame PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL has several great online backup systems available: Slony-I (repliaction), point-in-time recovery (PITR), and pg_dump. Use them.
You are also the first person I've heard describe PostgreSQL as a "memory hog".
My guess is that you made no attempt to diagnose the problem. I doubt your problems are related to a PostgreSQL bug. You could have reported your problems on pgsql-general, and I'm sure people there would have helped you as long as you provided good information.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
A brighter LAMP: Linux Apache Middleware PostgreSQL
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
I think you can criticize something/someone, but you got to get your facts correct first.
e lling-the-myths.html
1. Dual License: Please read Myth #6:
http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/disp
2. MySQL, all the GUI and Connectors, hell even the Support software used (Eventum) is
available under GPL, aka open source.
3. MySQL Network is not free no, but see point 2.
4. Many developers should know what they are doing and think first before making something.
See point 1.
5. What?
6. See point 1.
I think SCO sucks as much as the next guy,
I suppose this "next guy" would be me, as I'm the first guy to reply to your post. Right?
You have some nerve, saying that SCO and I suck equally.
--
Waging war against fundamentalism is as likely to make the fundamentalists give up as 9/11 was likely to make the United States give up.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
You mean you were actually convinced by the marketspeak? I saw right through it -- mysql is saying what sco wants to hear, not what mysql actually believes.