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MySQL Ends Enterprise Server Source Tarballs
vboulytchev writes "The folks at MySQL has quietly announced that it will
no longer be distributing the MySQL Enterprise Server source as a tarball. It's been about a year since the split between the paid and free versions of the database project. The Enterprise Server code is still under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and as a result MySQL appears to be making it harder for non-customers to access the source code. 'One of the things that many users worry about is whether they're getting an inferior version of MySQL by using the Community version. Urlocker says that MySQL "wants to make sure the Community version is rock solid," but admitted that the company has introduced features into the Community edition of the software that "[weren't] as robust as we thought, and created some instabilities." Because of that, the company is revising its policies about when features go into the Community releases.'" Update: 08/10 04:56 GMT by CN :While it is slightly harder to get, the source isn't closed by any means, so I updated the title to reflect that.
Buh-bye... was fun while it lasted!
Can we all just switch to Postgres now?
Cheap web hosting, I'm looking at you...
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
... company is obviously designed to move people to buy the product that gives them more income.
This sounds just like the FUD that microsoft guy made by "admitting" that XP has problems in the hopes that people will move to vista.
I think it's best to simply ignore the marketing people. There are no "instabilities" in the stable community version above and beyond the normal cycle of bugs and bugfixes you see in any software.
Let me be the first to suggest UseToBeMySQL or NowItsNotYourSQL. Or better yet SoldOutMySQL. SQLMoneyWhore might not fly but then again offensive names don't seem to be a problem with open source (I'm thinking of GIMP).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It says that the source will no longer be shipped as a tarball. You now have to take it out of bitkeeper. IOW, you still get the source.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This is the next step on from creating a second-class citizen 'community' codebase.
MySQL.com have always tacked open source on as an afterthought.
Their contributor agreement is effectively
'thanks, your patch, copyright and patents belong to us now, but here's a free t-shirt for your trouble'.
http://forge.mysql.com/contribute/cla.php
I hope this makes some of the bazillion webapps
that couldn't be bothered to support other databases realise all their eggs are in a pretty ropey basket right now.
Lots of OSS projects use Mysql. If they want to take their ball and go home, so bet it. we can take a tarball and create OurSQL.
Come on people this is what OSS is all about. forking and starting a new project because the current project leaders became poopwads.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
A MySQL fork: "OurSQL" or something like that
or
A general shift to PostgreSQL... seems a lot of people are favoring that route.
I don't care which way it goes, the community will respond and MySQL will become irrelevant.
I dont think anyone is really suprised.
PostgreSQL is still free and more powerful anyway so no great loss.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is actually the tendence that worries me. These days many people (thankfully not everybody) think they have the RIGHT to get everything for free. One bitches because product X is not Open Source (Ohh what a crime!!!). The other bitches because X (which VERY GENEROUSLY was giving many years of hard work to people who don't even write a line of code) is taking their hard work back for Y reasons (yes, making a buck for many years of hard work is not a bad thing , you know)
Another funny thing: I was talking to a man here at work. The man is a a rabious defender of OS. He wouldn't touch a non- OS program, he almost cried when MS made a deal with Novell, he screams how much he hates Photoshop and how great Gimp is (just because is OS)... And guess what? He develops a very good backup solution for databases and he takes good money for it. He was having some difficulties adding features. Knowing how good of an OS supporter he was I had the nerve to suggest to him to open the source of his program. ARE YOU FUCKING MAD?- he said. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD I WORK FOR THIS SHIT? AND I WOULD GIVE IT TO THE DOGS?....
Moral of the story. If you work hard for your work and wnat to share , so be it. If you want to get your work back iand this is posible, just do it. You have the right. people will bitch, people will call you a shit, people will hate you... And yet, the majority of them won't share a shit either giving the oportunity.
Making money is not a crime folks....
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
When you look at the licensing - and how unnecessarily complex it is, how open to interpretation free use is, etc.
Then when you look at the the history of mysql ab - how they used to tell developers that they didn't need referential integrity, didn't need transactions, etc - until they had them.
Then when you realize that this is a commercial organization - a for profit company. Then it should be apparent where this is all headed: They're growing a user base, and hope to tighten up the licensing and pull the profits in tomorrow.
... meh. SQLite is better for "toy database" problems anyway. It's fast, it's free, it's Free, and it's very compact. For a lot of applications where people use MySQL, it will fit in with just a few little changes.
Sod MySQL, SQLite is the future.
I imagine this is the first of many. The advocates of Open Source for years have been pretending that they are on the side of the angels and immune to normal personal and business pressures. They're wrong.
Yep. Greed's a bitch.
On a related note: great job guys. It looks like you took your cues from XFree86 -- I guess you were inspired by how well that worked out....
The real litigious bastards...
MySQL Bugs Community Edition Users
Releasing bugs with the community edition and fixing them for the enterprise edition doesn't say much for MySQL technically, or ethically, take your pick.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I've worked on a fair few projects using MySQL, and I've never used anything but the community version. This raises in me no sense of indignation.
how to invest, a novice's guide
The last thing you want to hear about a DBMS is this line from MySQL: "the company has introduced features into the Community edition of the software that "[weren't] as robust as we thought, and created some instabilities"
This, among other reasons, is why we switched to Postgresql some years ago. MySQL was (is?) not even ANSI SQL compliant, at least when we were struggling with it.
i think i see a fork coming along. still a 'community' version, but based on the supposedly more conservative enterprise codebase (whatever the last freely available gpl version is i suppose). either that or someone will take the current community version and strip it back to be a 'lean stable' version and build from there.
I propose calling it OurSQL.
Put identity in the browser.
To close the source they would have to comb back through the contributions of other people over the years and take out all OS code that is what they didn't pay for in-house.
But MySQL AB owns the copyright on all the code, regardless of the contributor, correct? That means they can close the source, and they don't have to ask anyone or comb anything.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Thing is, many people don't understand the GPL. The GPL never said 'you must distribute your source code to everyone'... you can, for example, make private changes and never give them out. In fact, this is explicitly given as an example of an important freedom by Stallman, Moglen, etc. Similarly, you have the freedom to make changes and give them to only a few people; this is exactly what MySQL are doing. Now, the people that do receive the code are free to further distribute it, according to the GPL, and I am sure we will see the code in some manner (compare to CentOS). But MySQL are well within their legal (and moral) rights to have only part of their GPLed code available on their servers in tarball format for anonymous download.
To attack MySQL about this is very unfair.
MySQL requires code contributions to be re-assigned to MySQL AB
/. yesterday)
Then why on earth are we calling it open source?
Every time a product starts to get good, some greedy fugknuckle on the project decides to close the source. We've seen it again and again. Here are the ones the come to mind:
FICS - Free Internet Chess Server
DD-WRT - Firmware for Linksys router
CDDB - Distrubted CD catalogue system
BitTorrent - File transfer (on
Now MySQL
I'm sure others could add plenty more examples. Anyone who committed to developing or using these products because the were FOSS has been badly burned.
I think this is becoming a bigger threat to open source than any other and it certainly puts me off contributing anything. For goodness sake don't call it open if they have the ability to close it off legally at any moment.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
This is essentially my understanding as well -- except for the "within their..moral...rights" part. I think the spirit of the license is clearly to encourage distribution, and if/when you're using other GPL code, or even just purporting to release code under that license (and thereby inviting certain people to use it -- under a contract) then you're misrepresenting yourself if you aren't going to stick to the principles of that license, even if you do stick to the word of it.
While I'm not doing database stuff currently, last time I was a year or two ago, I actually saw this coming and opted for Postgres rather than MySQL.
Postgres is a fantastic project. It's very solid, can handle huge transaction/request loads, has concurrent locking etc, from memory supports a large number of different datatypes, and is also very configurable. Even better, it's under what is my own favourite license, the BSD license...so you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.
MySQL will probably continue to have its' place, with people who need the things they're charging for, (presumably support options etc) and I wish the project well.
However, for people like me who don't have a lot of money, MySQL ceased being an entirely legally safe option a while ago.