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Sun May Begin Close Sourcing MySQL Features
An anonymous reader writes "From the MySQL User's Conference, Sun has announced, and former CEO Marten Mickos has confirmed, that Sun will be close sourcing sections of the MySQL code base. Sun will begin with close sourcing the backup solutions to MySQL, and will continue with more advanced features. With Oracle owning Innodb, and it being GPL, does this mean that MySQL will be removing it to introduce these features? Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything."
For PostgreSQL :) http://www.postgresql.org/
Would you like another round of ammo with that foot gun Sun?
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
That's not what the linked blog post says, basically what they're doing is developing new features to be put in MySQL 6.0 enterprise, and these _new_ features won't show up in community.
didn't sun buy star office and give us the OPEN SOURCE - openoffice.org?
given the size and nature of this move, I don't begrudge sun anything in its commitment to open source.
When all else fails, try.
How could you fork code that hasn't been released in the first place?
OpenOffice.org - no mention eh. :P
Java - I am running the IcedTea free software version right now
OpenSolaris - might not be GPL, but it still qualifies as free software... right?
Of course I'm hoping the first part is a joke too.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything.
That's rubbish. The article claiming OpenSolaris isn't really open source bases it on the lack of community and ideology. I'm sorry, but if you want ideology, then it's Free Software you're after, not open source.
OpenSolaris is definitely open source, and Sun don't have a poor history of open sourcing things. Anybody who says otherwise has an axe to grind.
It's not just going to piss off people relying on MYSQL, it should REALLY piss off the people who with a sense of open source community built it. Is this the new way for business to embrace OSS--to let all the cute little developers work on a project until it is stable and successful and then when the kids have had enough fun let the adults take over and transistion it away from OSS. This is very discouraging.
As much as these "old" companies claim they understand where the industry is headed, they really have no clue....
:)
The only thing that Sun will achieve in this change is a fork... Maybe that was the plan all along... The founders of MySQL AB get their big checks, and then create a new company with a forked version of MYSQL.. Brilliant!!!
Those guys are such dicks, they never give the community anything.
Oh, no they don't. They can't do that to MySQL.
They can do it to TheirSQL, but not MySQL...
SIGLOST && SIGUNUSED && SIGQUIT
Sure, you can fork it, but almost all MySQL development is done by paid MySQL engineers (or paid InnoDB engineers). I think Google might have some engineers working on it, and I think Slashdot/VA Linux/Whatever they're called now might have had 1 at one point. The GCC/EGCS fork worked because most of the developers went with the EGCS. The XFree86/X.org fork worked because most of the developers went with the X.org. Lucid probably spent 250-500k in producing the XEmacs fork. How many other big projects have successfully forked?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Thank you for pointing this out. Sun is not close sourcing existing portions of MYSQL. Just adding new features for the customers who will pay an arm and a leg for it. It may not be the smartest move in scoring points with the open source community, but it gives them more leverage with their high end customers.
Sun will only develop and release certain features in the Enterprise version, specifically relating to online backup, management, and other advanced features. What's in the current version stays in the current version, but they will phase out those features in the community branch. Someone can still port them from the old version, but even then, we won't get the benefit of Sun's new developments.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
...YourSQL?
We do get to keep what we made. If it's under the GPL, we can always fork it into a new Open Source product called OurSQL. It's just that we won't be able to integrate any of their proprietary new features that are NOT under the GPL. But, hey, who needs 'em for that? If Open Source could get it this far, odds are good Open Source can do even more.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
Thanks for all the comments on this. We are listening attentively. Let me clarify some facts:
* The business decision on this was made by MySQL AB (by me as the then CEO) prior to the acquisition by Sun, so this has nothing to do with Sun. On the contrary, Sun is more likely to influence this decision the other way.
* It is not a quesiton of close sourcing any existing code, nor anything in the core server. Everything we have released under GPL continues to be under GPL, and the core server will always be under GPL (or some other FOSS licence).
* We will introduce backup functionality for all users (Community and Enterprise) under GPL in version 6.0.
* Additionally we will develop high-end add-ons (such as encryption, native storage engine-specific drivers) that we will deliver to customers in the MySQL Enterprise product only. We have not yet decided under what licence we will release those add-ons (GPL, some other FOSS licence, and/or commercial).
* At all times, because the main backup functionality goes into the core server under GPL, anyone can of course use the api and build their own add-ons or other modifications.
Those are the facts on this. The interesting topic is of course the one of the business model and what the best business model for FOSS software is. I hope to cover that in a separate posting.
In all of this, you have our undivided continued commitment to providing a fantastic and complete MySQL server under GPL for anyone to download and use. If we for whatever reason would not do that, we would risk losing users to other open source databases or risk seeing a fork of our own product. This is the power of open source.
Make sense?
Marten
previously CEO of MySQL, now SVP at Sun
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No comment regarding XFree86/Xorg.
No comment regarding the Emacs/XEmacs fork, except to point out that there was an earlier fork called Epoch made in the version 18 days and that didn't go anywhere. I used it for a time in 1990 and preferred it to straight Emacs 18.
The only other major fork I can think of would be the *BSD forks, Open, Net and Free.
Successful forking is very rare and requires a truly dedicated developer community or large corporate backing to pull it off. Out of the few examples listed one of them was not a fork at all, but a coup and resulted in the death of the parent.
All,
/.). I would hope we could please all, but I am afraid we cannot.
I tried to clarify the facts in another posting a moment ago: http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=525246&cid=23098626
Here I will discuss the business model considerations, MySQL's commitment to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and why we made the decision we made.
First and foremost: we at MySQL firmly believe that open source is a superior way of producing software. You get better quality faster, and you often get better innovation too.
So it is not lightly that we have decided a few times to produce non-open software, such as the MySQL Monitor introduced some years ago. So why do we do that?
The reason is that we have an ambition not only to produce FOSS code, but also to be a profitable business that can exist for a long time. Each time we make more money, we hire more developers to develop GPL code.
If the world were perfect, we would only produce GPL code and we would have a great business that cna fund the software development. But we have found that the world is not perfect. We have been experimenting with a variety of business models around FOSS (dual licensing, support only, simple subscriptions, different binaries for community and enterprise, non-open source features) to find the best one. And we will continue to experiment until we are satisfied. We need to find a model that allows us to produce a ton of great code under GPL while having the financial strength to do all this.
To get to this goal of ours, we believe we have to be more pragmatic than dogmatic. Call it a necessary evil if you like. Having production add-ons that we provide only to paying customers currently seems to use to be a useful model. Our partners and customers think it is great. Many users think it is great. But not all do (as evident from this thread on
In all of this - i.e. as we experiment with open source business models (as there aren't really any role models bigger than ourselves that we could learn from) - we remain fully committed to producing the core database server always under the GPL (or some other approved FOSS licence).
In this work, we feel we have been able to produce enormous benefits to the world in the form of GPL software. The MySQL server could not have evolved as much as it did (not that I am saying it has evolved perfectly) if we hadn't had a revenue stream to fund the hiring of developers and others. We have open sourced MySQL Cluster which was an advanced closed-source database engine at Ericsson. We open sourced the Falcon storage engine.
I can appreciate that many of you are upset with our decisions. It has happened before that the community has been upset with us. But I hope that you can see that
* we are trying to be fully open and transparent with our decision-making in these areas
* we have a full commitment to produce the core MySQL server under GPL
* we are actively listening to your input
We can probably not please all, but you should know that we are trying to serve our community. We are immensely thankful for all the support and contributions that we have received in our 13-year history. We are hoping that we are good stewards of the MySQL phenomenon, and we hope that you can come to terms with the fact that we find revenue generation a vital part of our mission.
We may not have come up with the perfect business model yet (and perhaps the decision that is here being debated was utterly stupid), but we are determined to continue to seek the perfect business model for open source software so that we can continue to exist and be strong, and so that other software entrepreneurs can learn from our successes and mistakes.
Finally, please note that this entire decision and reasoning is something we developed on our own at MySQL AB several months ago, before being acquired by Sun. Sun has not asked us to do this or that. Or in fact, Sun has asked us the opposite - i.e. whether we should not
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think MySQL ever had an open source developer community. It was developed by a company and released as an open source product. Unlike PostgreSQL, which really is developed by a community of developers.
Looking at the actual link, this is talking about select _new_ features. The /. summary clearly is trying to scare us all into thinking that existing parts of MySQL would somehow be turned into a closed-source product.
Talk about someone trying to be misleading...
The title of this article is a bit dramatic and incorrect. There is nothing in the story about the core MySQL engine being moved from open source to a closed source mentioned in the story. Rather a fancy new backup add-on is being released to Enterprise edition, and possibly added to the community version later.
/. and the open source community in general. I'd like to see more people showing respect for a company that has done so much for open source and respect the fact that they deserve to actually make a little money along the way.
MySQL is one of the most popular open source products out there, but they get lambasted if they create an add-on and want to actually get paid for it. Too many ppl react as if they are defecating on a holy shrine in the land of FOSS.
The title of this article and some of the reactions here strikes me a chicken little "the sky is falling" BS. I love open source software and the general movement, but I hate it when people jump to conclusions like this... and jumping to conclusions like this seems to happen all to often by ppl on
I can't help but wonder how many of the people, who treat this story like the evil Sun is going ruin MySQL, run MySQL but haven't open sourced the programs that they've written that access the database... I'd bet a hell of a lot of closed source programs use MySQL as their database... should we scream at them for being evil too?
It occurs to me that buying an open source software company might be a sneaky way to get some good, old fashioned customer lock-in.
Look for free software program, preferably complicated, with a large user base.
Close it, and begin charging.
It seems as though you could get customers to stick around with the right price point. Now you may begin your ad infinitum licensing fees.
I'm not saying that's what's happening in this case, but it seems like something to evaluate. The two flaws in this idea:
The customers migrate to another free software tool - which might be difficult to do.
The program forks.
Seems to minimize risk a high percentage of the userbase would pay as the path of least resistance.
The fact that the buyers could get to this point on the (free) contributions of the original authors is kind of annoying.
Your probably still better off having used free software in the first place.
Absolute statements are never true
I know it's all over the story on Slashdot's end but the article it self does not say anything will be closed. GPLed code can be open but cost money. Am I missing some other article? Because to me it sounds like they plan on doing things the Red Hat way. Public free version and Enterprise pay version.
I agree... it seems the headlines and articles have been getting things wrong more often lately... it seemed like the reviewer who posted the story would at least add to the post if they thought part of it was incorrect or misleading... but that doesn't seem to happen as often anymore... I hope /. editors start correcting this, because if the stories become more and more inaccurate... we won't be able to trust /. as a reliable source of tech news. And once ppl don't trust the source, well it's game over.
THere's an appropriate saying about getting free donuts and complaining about the holes...
When there are so many good alternatives! Check it out.
Hax-fu?
...the editors can't even be bothered to read the link and verify the information.
I went to firehose to vote this story down with the reason "not the best". I suggest we all start doing this for all such examples of yellow journalism. Maybe if we do it enough, the editors will start to get a clue.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
This is more like the adult teaching a kid about sharing by playing with a toy with the child. Eventually, the kid's gonna snatch it off the adult, clutch it to his chest possessively and and yell "MINE!"
I solved that with my 3 YO daughter by taking the batteries out of her toy and telling her that the toy is hers, but the batteries were mine. When she realised that the toy didn't work without the batteries, she understood the meaning of sharing.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Think "the former CEO of MySQL posted a cogent response to this confirming that the summary is way off base."
Think "I really ought to read some of the comments before I freak out."
Think "It's Wednesday; we're supposed to hate Sun on *Thursdays*."
MySQL has a few advantages over PostgreSQL. Primarily, it's supported by just about every damn open source package in the world. If MySQL is closed up, OSS developers may choose to drop support for it. Personally, I think PostgreSQL is a better package than MySQL, but I mostly use MySQL because of its compatibility with everything. I won't, though, hesitate to switch if I am not happy with the direction of MySQL.
-- Will program for bandwidth
awhile. I was hoping that Sun would reverse that trend. It sounds like they are keeping the base package free (for now), but that high end add ons will be closed/commercial. That is fine, but it is also enough of a closed-source move for me to start looking at alternatives. I wish them the best of luck, but I will make sure I do what is best for me and my clients. Maybe I'll use MySQL, maybe I won't, it will depend on license, price, functionality, and community support.
For a userbase that is always congratulating itself on how smart it is, there sure are a lot of gullible people reading Slashdot...
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
Post / Grez / Queue /El
Because it is such a common question (and such an odd name), it is aptly an entry in the PostgreSQL FAQ.
If you don't like my phonetic spelling and prefer IPA, Wikipedia has you covered.
Many people, myself included, simply call it Postgrez.
Yes, this is what Oracle does with Berkeley DB. On one project, we started out with using Berkeley DB. It wasn't meeting the needs, so we started looking at other options. Oracle had us hooked, and started reeling us in. Up until we got to the price tag. They wouldn't offer the support that we needed for their commercial version of Berkely DB, and instead wanted to push us towards their full Oracle DB. It sounded fine until we got to the price. They wanted, get this, 5% of the gross revenues of the product we were designing!!! Not a per-license fee, not a large finite sum for the product, but a full 5% of the revenues.
Needless to say, we told them to take a hike.
This is different than from a few years ago. Then they were willing to do a per license fee. But, of course, at an astronomical amount. Plus, this amount would literally change each time we talked to a different salesperson. There was a lot of confusion at the time. Now they've eliminated the confusion, but their greed knows no bounds.
Sun is welcome in this space, IMHO. More competition is good, because frankly, all of the vendors have serious drawbacks in one way or another.
The moral of the story is be real careful about the database you select, and your design. If you choose foolishly, you'll end up spending lots of money, when a better design could have saved you from this pain.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
SUN is not closing parts of MySQL, instead it is introducing new features in MySQL Enterprise, a product which always had extra features.
... for example at the conference I saw a presentation on Maria, a MyIsam-based storage engine that supports transactions.
...
Not to mention that SUN is not the only one doing interesting things with MySQL
Also, the features in MySQL Enterprise can (at least currently) be enjoyed by most developers using alternatives
1) the hot backup of myisam tables will be available in the open-source version
2) the smart load balancer is a MySQL Proxy configured with filtering scripts that you can write yourself in Lua
3) profiling can be done efficiently with Sun's DTrace
Disclaimer: I am currently attending the MySQL conference, but I am not affiliated with Sun in any way.
What about the Compiz, Beryl, Fusion fiasco? That was a fork, merge, (branch?)... I've got svn repos with less confusing trees, for craps sake! Granted, it only lasted, what a couple of months or so, and I'm glad that every was able to humble themselves and work it all out... but it still was a fiasco!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
This is frequently, though not always, true for RedHat. Some of their clustering systems are closed source, and available on RHEL and not Fedora. But it's generally true.
There are companies that use the 'closed first, GPL later' approach: Xensource did with Xen virtualization softwre, and Citrix is allegedly doing the same now that they bought Xen. AFPL does this with Ghostscript, and at last look Zmanda was doing this with Amanda.
The /. summary is misleading. It isn't MySQL that is going to be closed-sourced, it's just that Sun will develop additional products that MySQL customers will be able to buy and use with their GPL MySQL server if they so choose. This isn't really news, MySQL AB has done so before, for example with the most excellent MySQL Enterprise Monitor.
"Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything."
...
.org) with more opensourced project than Sun ?
Really, is Java not under GPL ? What about OpenOffice ? What about Netbeans ? Glassfish ? OpenDS ?
Can anybody name a company (nor a
Please, correct/moderate this misleading part of the article too.
this is not good, not good at al... EVERY commercial Linux distribution has parts which may or may not be open source, but if they are open they're certainly open to the extent that the GPL is.
Ubuntu has Landscape, a tool for managing a number of Ubuntu desktops. Only available if you're paying Canonical for support.
SuSE plugs into ZenWorks - most certainly not F/OSS.
RHEL has Fedora Directory Server (albeit rebranded as Red Hat). That one's open source but such an absolute dog to set up that you'd need your head examined if you tried doing it any way other than "throw money at Red Hat".
End of the day, lots of F/OSS projects have "Free" and "Commercial" versions, where the commercial version costs money and comes with a few extra bells & whistles. Just off the top of my head, there's Smoothwall, KnowledgeTree, any number of Exchange alternatives (free but if you want full Exchange-like functionality complete with Outlook integration it costs money) and ZenOSS. It seems to work as a business model, I can well understand Sun adopting it.
"Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything"
Get back in your hole Troll. According to the EU Sun is the No 1 contributor of code towards open source by a very, very wide margin.
If your referential integrity is in your application then your database engine is broken. His professor had it right. He wasn't writing to a product, he was writing to just about any modern relational database management system *except* for MySQL and SQLite. At least SQLite never pretended to have a complete feature set. MySQL lacked and blamed its lack on "avoiding bloat."
And constraints in MySQL? Is that why CHECK constraints were silently ignored for so many years? What you call "constraints," I call "the vast subset of constraints that MySQL managed to support in a timely fashion." Big difference.
You can simulate 3NF with application patches, but without actual DB support, it's smoke and mirrors. Without enforced foreign keys, it's not an ACID database. A database engine missing ACID is like an operating system with cooperative multitasking. Sure you can have multiple apps running at the same time, but don't for a second pretend that it's the same thing as preemptive multitasking as long as you have proper application support. To assert as much is missing the underlying point altogether.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.