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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."
If you think about it makes sense for Oracle to continue developing MySQL, since this is like Nissan and Infiniti where the customer is provided with a high-end product and a low-end product. Oracle gets to offer service for both, recognising that not everyone wants to have to deal with the Oracle database product, either due to cost or needs. At the same time for customers growing past what MySQL is good at, Oracle can then offer them an upgrade path to their premium product.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
Would it not be a good idea to fork MySQL at this point? rather than relying on Oracle who pledge (which is not legally binding) to continue supporting MySQL and giving it away for free. Even though there is no compelling reason for them to unless they plan to assimilate it into their outrageously priced commercial database packages
Big companies like Oracle are just not to be trusted, any embracing they do must be seen as simply the first step to extending and extinguishing. It would be completely naive to think otherwise
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.
I know I'm going to be modded down for this but why bother with MySQL at all? There are other better free databases out there. MySQL is still not even ANSI 92 compliant yet.
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?
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/ibu_index.php?storyid=832
Look at Berkeley DB (on which OpenLDAP uttely depends.) It's now "Oracle Berkeley DB". I don't see any monkey business with that arrangement (although the OpenLDAP people are probably working on ditching BDB just as due diligence.)
The SFLC's Eben Moglen is okay with Oracle taking on MySQL:
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/blog/cases/oracle-sun/ec-hearing-and-after.html?seemore=y
Among other interesting analysis:
"In fact, I think they're wrong. I don't think the GPL is a bad economic fit for MySQL. I believe that Oracle sees clearly the nature of its business interests. It knows that MySQL is much, much more valuable to it alive than dead. In fact, Oracle has almost as much reason to improve MySQL as it has to improve its flagship product. For a small firm, like MySQL AB, dual-licensing revenue was the only efficient revenue source with which to develop the product. But for Oracle, service revenue is much more significant than dual-licensing royalties. As all parties who have spoken about the merger agree, regardless of which side they are on, enterprises that use Oracle are very likely to use MySQL also, because MySQL is the world leader in number of installs. Which means that companies that pay Oracle to service Oracle are very likely to pay Oracle to service MySQL as well, if Oracle is not only servicing MySQL but acting as primary funder and participant in a flourishing MySQL ecology. Even if Oracle were only willing to invest in MySQL the extent of its ability to increase the MySQL service business, Oracle would be the best thing that ever ichappened to MySQL. In fact, Oracle has an immense incentive to invest far more in MySQL than the extent of its increased winnings in the MySQL service market. MySQL driven technologically and economically by Oracle will be a price-zero full-GPL missile aimed at Microsoft SQL Server. "
Oracle cannot kill MySQL. The code has been released via the GPL license. This means anyone can fork MySQL and continue to develop it!
Why are people so stupid!
If MySQL was not under the GPL at the time shame on Monty,
It was, but the copyright holder is free to offer the code under other licenses. Monty's complaint is now that he sold the copyrights, he can no longer offer the code under other license terms. It was a fairly lucrative business for him, but he sold that business for a lot of money, and now he wants to have it given back to him for free. (Free as in beer, not speech.)
Your arguments apply just fine to the rest of us. Oracle owning the GPL'd MySQL is no threat to anyone except Monty's greed.
It sounds as if you could be a little confused about this. MySQL owned the complete copyright to the MySQL server. So, they could commercially license it as well as provide it under the GPL. Most GPL projects do not have this capability, because no one entity owns the entire copyright and the aggregate of all copyright holders do not work together to dual-license.
So, Sun bought the rights to commercially license MySQL, and to enforce the GPL on those who do not have commercial licenses. Now Oracle will have that.
Bruce Perens.
Duel license? When there is a conflict in git/svn/cvs during a merge, shoot the other developer.
I like it.
The problem is that Oracle is at least twenty years ahead of all of their competitors in database technology. Oracle 7, ca 1991, has a better overall implementation than the latest and greatest from IBM, Microsoft, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and so on. I mean MySQL is barely out of the 'toy' stage (special purpose applications excluded). In the intervening two decades Oracle has widened the gap. That means for a certain classes of OLTP applications, people tend to think you are suicidal if you recommend anything else.
The only way to minimize this problem is to bring (open source) databases closer to parity, even with where Oracle was twenty years ago. PostgreSQL is the only one that comes close in the open source world. MySQL started out with so many bizarre design decisions and gratuitous incompatibilities, that I wonder if it will *ever* come close, at least not without losing backward compatibility in a big way.
Do you know, I'm nearly sure I read something very similar only a couple of days ago.
Except it wasn't you saying it.
This leaves to my mind a few possibilities:
Do you mind if I ask which it is?
Forking is a feature of the GPL, just like mobility is a feature of a Segway: it's not the only tool that gets the job done, but the statement is still accurate.
I think Oracle bought Sun for Java, and that everything else was bonus material.
Oracle uses Java, their customers use Java, it's all over the place ... a chance to keep it out of competitors' hands is a bonus, but the real reason would be to be able to exercise more control over the direction the language takes.
I am the author of the original comment, and haven't the slightest idea why the poster here pretended that he was, and posted it again. That's just weird.