Ask MySQL's CEO About Running a Free Software Business

There have been so many articles written about the perils, pitfalls, and possible rewards of running a business based on free or open source software that we can't possibly link to them all. Instead, let's ask MySQL CEO Mårten Mickos how to make money with a company based on free software, because he runs a company that is almost always touted as one of the world's greatest free software (business) successes. You may want to read some of these interviews with Mårten before you come up with your own questions in order to avoid duplication, but other than that suggestion and the usual Slashdot interview rules, ask whatever you like, however you like.

Comments

Conflict of Interest

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

One of the most common complaints I've heard about the business model of profiting on support for a product, is that it provides motivation to keep the product from becoming very user friendly. After all, if the product is too easy to use, who will pay for support? In my own experience, I've seen a lot of companies that consider support to be insurance, and don't use it for help with installation, configuration, or to overcome usability issues so much as a way to cover their asses in case something goes very wrong. Do a lot of your customers use support to overcome usability problems and if so, does this de-motivate you to solve other usability issues?

Clarification requested and Questions

[FallLine]

Why is MySQL's justification of claiming the GPL applies to the MySQL wire level protocol itself?

Please mod this up. I wish to understand the rational for this decision as well as a potential commercial, closed source, software developer. Though I can appreciate MySQL's need to make money, I fail to see how this is consistent with GPL, as I understand it. MySQL apparently demands that I either pay up or open source my software simply because it packages and uses the MySQL database (no modifications to any GPL code). From what I've been able to gleen, this is derived from the fact that MySQL changed their client libraries from LGPL to GPL, which essentially asserts that any software that uses its libraries essentially becomes a derivative work and thus must also be GPL'd. Is this the argument?

Is there anything to stop someone from:

a) reverse engineering the protocols and creating their own closed source libraries to access the database
(As a corollary to this, if GPL software can claim this, what is to stop, say, Microsoft from imposing punative costs on 3rd party software that attempts to interoperate with its own servers and/or clients?)

b) modify the older LGPL library to bring it up to date with the current database? Though the changes would have to be released, the code that accesses it would not... if I understand it correctly.

c) using one of the existing modified-LGPL or Closed Source libraries?

If it is not possible to do this, why? If the mere deployment of the database or inter-operability with it becomes grounds for being compelled to open source everything (or potentially be compelled to pay exorbitant fees) which in any shape, way, or form builds upon GPL software, then is there not a real danger for any more conventional (closed source) software company to potentially have their business model be destroyed overnight at the whim of the open source developers or the dual-licensed software/support company? How is a commercial software company supposed to port their software to, say, the Linux platform without facing this kind of risk?

To be clear, I am not opposed to a hybrid licensing model. I can see the advantages for various parties, namely, Open Software developers and the MySQL AB. Providing everyone behaves reasonably and consistently, I see this as being a workable system. However, I can also see great risk for businesses that wish to build upon open source software if a reasonable licensing structure is not available (or continued) that permits closed source development.