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.""

Comments

Bah!

[TerminaMorte]

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!

Groklaw Interviews MySQL AB CEO Marten Mickos

[anandpur]

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510112 11450706

* 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_ 948.html

Re:Groklaw Interviews MySQL AB CEO Marten Mickos

[tyler_larson]

The backlash against MySQL for dealing with SCO is harsh, probably unwarranted, but, most importantly, very effective at conveying the desired message: don't talk to SCO. Don't even return their phone calls.

SCO, you remember, is a UNIX company--they don't write all their own software, which is why their OS is POSIX. They absolutely rely on cooperation with the community to make their product marketable.

Now, they're blacklisted. Companies and projects that use community-driven models (or even market to such organizations) are clearly and unequivocally forbidden to associate in any way with SCO. It's just not worth risking the sort of backlash that hit MySQL.

Re:Confused about licensing

[BVis]

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?

Re:What piece are we talking about?

[lmfr]

Oracle acquired Innobase, maker of InnoDB.

Re:Confused about licensing

[team99parody]

The problem is that MySQL's business depended on a dual-licensing model where they selling a proprietary-licensed version of MySQL. Sure, they could keep using the GPL'd InnoDB in the GPL'd version of MySQL; but they can not incorporate the GPL'd InnoDB in the proprietary MySQL.

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.

Learn from the IBM case.

[khasim]

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.

Re:Learn from the IBM case.

[twiddlingbits]

"No matter how insane the SCO management is, lawyers aren't going to take on a case they're not going to get paid for."

WRONG..it's called a Contingency case, they win they get paid, they lose they get nothing. This approach is very common in personal injury lawsuits.

The SCO case is a hybrid of this where Boise-Schiller took company stock as part of the fee, they win and the price goes up and they clean up, they lose SCO goes under they get only the cash part of the compensation.

Anyone getting involved that deeply with SCO must have a screw loose, SCO is just crazy enough to sue mySQL in hopes of keeping themselves alive a bit longer even after they lose to IBM (and appeal of course).

Oracle is MySQL's most dreaded rival?

[IANAAC]

I honestly don't know anyone who could actually say that with a straight face.

Re:Article is flamebait

[sqlrob]

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.

Dan Lyons at his finest.

[DjReagan]

"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.

Typical Lyons Nonsense

[tclark]

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.

Larry Ellison

[EraserMouseMan]

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.

yep

[kpharmer]

> 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.

Thanks MySQL!

[matchboy]

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

Guys please...

[Spy der Mann]

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?

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 /. 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?.

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).

Re:INDEMNITY? Will SCO sue us some day?

[jadavis]

PostgreSQL. A short list of benefits:
- MVCC reduces need for locking, often called "better than row-level locking"
- Also has row level locking
- ACID compliant
- transactions, and savepoints (which are SQL nested transactions)
- point in time recovery (PITR) allows "time-travel" and parallel timelines. It's a little much to explain here, but if you encounter a problem and notice it a week later, you can go back in time, prevent the problem, and replay everything else that happened that week. All the good and none of the bad from a sci-fi book :)
- VERY extensible: you can make user-defined functions in any of PL/pgSQL, PL/perl, PL/python, PL/java, C, or SQL. And if that's not enough, you can write another procedural language to support your favorite language.
- You can make a user-defined aggregate function using any of those languages.
- User-defined types
- triggers
- views
- subselects
- query rewriting rules (which can be used to make any view updatable/insertable)
- constraints
- good, well-maintained, and BSD licensed replication software available.

New in 8.1 (which is beta now):
- Two-phase commit (2PC)
- IN/OUT/INOUT parameters to functions
- rudimentary table partitioning
- bitmap index scans
- autovacuum intelligently automates a long standing maintenence procedure, making the database easier to administer.
- SQL ROLES
- more options for row-level locking

Re:Doesn't worry me much

[mcrbids]

If the community decides MySQL is now the work of the devil

I could care less about "the community" - but I decided long ago that MySQL wasn't worth it. I've been using/promoting PostgreSQL for years, and have written some rather large projects (EG: 100+ tables, millions of records) with it very, very happily.

Advantages of Postgres:

1) Many, many MANY features in common with "enterprise" database products,

2) Open License lets you do pretty much anything you like, commercial or free.

3) Good documentation

4) Very solid - in 6 years of use, I've only had a problem ONCE with postgres on a machine with bad memory.

5) Helpful community support.

6) Comes pre-installed with most server-based distros. EG: RedHat

MySQL's advantages

1) Sounds good as part of "LAMP"

2) Uses "easier" administration, EG: "connect DBNAME" instead of the more terse "\c DBNAME". (but requires more typing)

3) Licensed under the GPL. (which restricts your use in any commercial product you distribute)

4) Fewer features means there's less to learn (???)

I switched to PG years ago, and I've never looked back.