Slashdot Mirror
Oracle Responds To MySQL Purchase Concerns
Luke has no name writes "Yesterday we discussed MySQL founder Monty Widenius's objections to the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle. Today, Oracle released a statement to address some of these issues. Among their commitments, Oracle says they intend to continue releasing MySQL under the GPL, allow vendors to produce 'any-license' third-party engines, maintain the Reference Manual, invest millions into the product, and create a 'customer advisory board.' The pledges are still not enough for some, however."
The original founders of MySQL are using the merger talks in the EU along with SAP and Microsoft to harm competition. The founders goal is to have the code licensed under the BSD so they can take the code they develop private. Monty and Florian have NEVER been friends of the GPL. Don't believe a word they say.
Monty has been paid somewhere north of 100 Million dollars in the MySQL purchase by Sun. Now, having been paid, Monty wants MySQL back for his business - without returning the money. And Monty has no problem with FUD-ing the GPL to get what he wants, even if the GPL provided half of the business method (dual-licensing) that made him rich.
Now, having been paid, I would think that an ethical position for Monty would be to allow MySQL's new owners to have what they paid for.
We can all use MySQL with no problem whatsoever under the GPL. With proprietary clients and Free clients, with no problem. An application across the network interface from the server, speaking a published and standard protocol, is not a derivative work. The GPL wouldn't apply to such an application. There is a GPL-ed client library that has to be replaced with a non-GPL version, but that version has existed for a decade.
Monty is free to do his business with the GPL version if he wishes. But it seems he wants to have his cake and eat it.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
no kidding. If you are unreasonable enough or you have absolutely no trust in Oracle, nothing will get rid of your concerns.
The source code being under the GPL currently so you could fork it if needed (what the GPL was intended for in the first place) isn't enough for some people.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Anyone can fork at anytime. The problem for Monty is that his fork would have to stay in the GPL. He isn't concerned that Oracle will stop maintaining MySQL or stop releasing it under the GPL. It's not Oracle that wants to close the source on MySQL, that's what Monty wants to do for himself. The problem is, he already sold the copyright and now only has access to the GPLed version.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Not really seeing it... I mean, they already have (fairly) low-end versions of Oracle already out there (starting with "Express"), which are basically stripped versions of the high-end products.
What would they gain from replacing those with a product based on a fairly incompatible and radically different codebase? You're supposed to up-sell customers, which MySQL likely won't do very well.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It appears that Oracle has now made some public promises with regard to MySQL so couldn't we return the favor and give them some time and see how it goes before allowing the GPL "true believers" tar and feather them? If any company that touches a GPL product gets burnt, no matter what their intentions, then doesn't that ultimately hurt rather than help the cause of free software?
And as for the founder's (and the founder's buddy referenced in the article) concerns about the future of the product then he shouldn't have sold the damn thing. So sorry, you sold your rights to it. Fork it and start over if you really care that much.
This is an interesting point. It IS open source and can be forked. How much work in improving the DB occurs within Sun (and soon Oracle) presently? Aside from ignoring new features which are introduced to the open source version, how much damage will ignoring the code base really cause?
I would assume (possibly dangerous) that most MySQL users are savvy enough to use a different flavor of the MySQL code base if the one they're currently on gets stale. I don't see Oracle introducing iterative improvements for MySQL and certainly little or nothing which will be under an open license. I CAN see them layering other features on top which don't become a part of the code base. Not sure why they would pursue such a path unless they want to poke at SQL Server some...
Computer Science is Applied Philosophy
It's not just like Nissan/Infity. Expensive cars cost more to build. The marginal cost for software is damn near zero. Oracle could easily go after the low-end market by offering a crippled version of the Oracle database. The only reason they have to buy MySQL is to kill it as a competitor because it is cutting into their sales. They certainly aren't going to incorporate any MySQL technology into their bread-and-butter product line.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.