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Gov't GSA Office goes MySQL
comforteagle writes "MySQL has won a five year contract with the US General Services Administration office putting it in yet another government office on top of NASA, the Dept. of Def., Los Alamos National Labs & the Census Bureau. This additional win allows around 70 Government customers to purchase and deploy MySQL."
GSA is not just another gov't office. Once you are on the GSA Schedule, then many other government offices and agencies can simply buy your product without any additional paperwork. This means that the on-ramp to MySQL just got *much* easier for many groups in the U.S. govenment.
To quote: "With the GSA contract, GS-35F-0131R Schedule 70, government customers will be able to purchase and deploy MySQL through Carahsoft Technology Corp. The GSA schedule is effective Dec. 20, 2005 through Nov. 19, 2009."
See the magic words "GSA Schedule?" This is a Very Good Thing(tm).
This is certainly useful, in that it makes the product available to Federal users at a known (and, since it's on a GSA schedule, typically better-than-average) price. But when a reseller negotiates to be the GSA dealer for an item, that's all they've accomplished. That's NOT the same as actually talking an agency into using the product. We also want to be careful not to draw the wrong conclusions. When they say that NASA is using it, that means it's one more tool in NASA's toolbox. Some people might get the impression that they're using in lieu of other DB engines, rather than along side of such.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
They recommend that all commercial entities use the commercial license. And if you call them to discuss the ins and outs of their licensing scheme, they'll try to talk you into the commercial license anyway.
Here's a nice blog entry about this scariness.
P.S. You're right. You *are* the bad analogy guy. You win.
Writerati
Choosing to go with a database that doesn't support foreign keys.
-- "I can't tell the future, I just work there." -- The Doctor
The fact of the matter is, in this post-SOX world business and governments needs to hedge their bets EVERYWHERE they can, and ensuring ongoing support services, upgrade protection, etc etc is how you can DOCUMENT steps taken to remediate the risks to integrity, availability and confidentiality. I like OSS, the people that support and write these application build into them wonderful security measures, precautions and a framework to utilize so many more security tools - but without a support agreement the application will never make it in the door. When that mission critical server crashes Google ain't gettin on a plane to come help you out.
Those are off the top of my head. There are more.
"The federal government will spend in excess of $400 billion with contractors this year and over $100 billion is expected to be spent with small businesses. Now business people from all over the U.S. can learn first hand from the experts how to capitalize on these business opportunities with federal government agencies without leaving their own offices"
Sounds good to me.
So, someone wants to tightly link a GPL core to a proprietary tool and redistribute without releasing all of the source code. Who's supposed to be upset at this, other than the person releasing the proprietary product?
Want to argue that binary compatibility is OK - go have fun on the Linux kernel mailing list and argue that a device driver doesn't need to be GPL.
If someone is sure that a library tightly bound to a binary interface isn't a derivative work, they are perfectly free to act on that belief.
MySQL seems committed to the free software objective of making more software free. The company licensing and views support that objective.
Other projects have a different view and accept commercial use with no payback the community or developers. Their call. MySQL's is that if you're using MySQL, you should either also be releasing free software or you should be contributing to the development of the server the free community and everyone else is using.
It appears that MySQL believes that's the practice which produces a strong open source database company. With more than a million downloads in just the first three weeks after MySQL 5 was released a few months ago, as well as several hundred employees, it's getting pretty hard to argue with the success of that view.
How does a site handling 6,000 page views per second, around a billion queries per day on five database servers and in the top 40 sites in the world according to Alexa.com sound?
Or how does Google's main revenue source or Travelocity's booking system or big chunks of Yahoo or... do I really need to continue with more examples of massive web traffic using MySQL?
Site design can be screwed up. It can also be done right. People regularly do it both ways. The database server usually isn't the reason. The people using it are.
Funny thing is between my last post... I had a slow response on my localhost and I did stop mysql service (on windows). And something weird happened... the column's type changed (a char(1) to a char(0) and I doubt I did change that by error). It happened on a table that indeed was supposed to be written at. Even thought the type changed from char(1) to char(0), the old data were still having one character inside. However... all the new data were empty string as the column specification changed. Quite scary... I am a perfectionnist, I try to slack off... but those kind of thing scare me when I see them in a software... Of course I did a NET STOP MySQL (service stop) on windows... but still... that could happen on our shared host server or is there something in mysql that could prevent this (i.e don't shutdown till the operation is finish?)
MySQL is on the GSA schedule - but thousands upon thousands of products are available on the GSA schedule. Just being on the GSA schedule isn't particularly dramatic, though. And the headline (and even the summary) are quite a bit more breathless and quite a bit less accurate than the real story.
-h-
After years of exhaustive, painstaking, and expensive study, our government has finally devised a method to buy something that's free.
I hope it at least comes with a $600 wrench or something...
This tagline is umop apisdn.
It greatly depends on how you 'use' it.
:)
Lets say you have a Java app that, in whatever way, uses the standard jdbc classes. One of your users chooses to use the MYSQL jdbc drivers to connect to a MySQL server. Your app doesn't need to be GPL, imo, because the only code YOU used was sun's JDBC code. Your user chose to link it to the GPL'd drivers and it's their responsability to adhere to the license. Since they can't distribute your code (they don't have it) as long as they don't distribute the binaries to the app, they are not in violation (since the code bit only applies to distribution).
HOWEVER, if you either specifically tell the user to use MySQL or expect the GPL mysql driver in your code (ie, specifically referencing the driver in the connect setup) then you are in GPL territory.
Now lets say you have a C/C++ app and you link in the mysql library (either statically or dynamically). The mysql client lib is under gpl and you, if you distribute your application, would be required to release it under the gpl - after all, you are using gpl'd code. The only way around this would be to find or develop and use a non-gpl driver.
The real answer, anyway, is that it depends on what you are linking to and how you link to it. Yes, simply connecting to a MySQL server does not implictly bind you to the GPL - just like Microsoft isn't required to GPL internet explorer because it can talk to a GPL'd webserver. However, if you are using the GPL'd drivers to connect, you are in GPL territory (not because you are connecting, but because you are using the GPL'd code to do it).
Oh, and IANAL and IMHO and YMMV and TANSTAAFL.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
So even the US government does not really care anymore for its own standards. I guess Oracle will feel relieved with their 'ISO SQL 92 minus datatypes and a few other essentials' product. It kind of makes the efforts of PostgreSQL and others toward ISO SQL:2003 (hint: each ISO SQL standard cancels the former one) futile.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Ever since the MySQL installer required a root password and disabled root connections outside localhost by default, while telling you that in clear language during the install process, it has been more credible as a simple installable RDBMS than some of the competition. FileMaker is another example of a database (of a sort, though) which makes sensible install defaults and then allows progressive expansion of capability without overwhelming the user with poorly documented options, but it is not as install-friendly.
I know it is fashionable for "real" computer scientists and DBAs to sneer at MySQL. But that's actually a sign of insecurity. Real mechanics don't sneer at zinc plated steel bolts because 316 is available: they just don't use zinc plate under salt spray conditions.
Pining for the fjords
Both Steve Ballmer and Larry Elison were seen throwing chairs and screaming, "We are a going to fucking bury the DoD, we did it before and we will do it again".
The DoD was heard mumbling something along the lines of "you and what army" and went back to keeping democracy save for billionares everywhere.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Geez. Tough crowd. I thought it was the funniest comment I've seen on /. all week.
;)
I guess you must be a MySQL user, and/or an American, right?
This morning, the NYTimes reports the GSA's website for contract bidding has been shut down due serious security flaws.
c ure.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/technology/13se
"The security flaw, which could have permitted contractor fraud, was reported to the agency's inspector general on Dec. 22, but almost three weeks passed before the system was taken offline Wednesday afternoon. The General Services Administration is the federal agency responsible for procuring equipment and services, including computer security technology, making the lapse all the more striking. "This is the government entity responsible for letting contracts for security," said Mark Rasch, chief security counsel for Solutionary, a security firm. "Clearly the people who log in would know about security.""