Monty Wants To Save MySQL

An anonymous reader writes "It seems as if the MySQL author is trying hard to win back control over MySQL. In his blog he calls upon the MySQL users to 'Help keep the Internet free' by signing his petition. He fears that if Oracle buys Sun they automatically get MySQL which would spell doom for the project. But I have have mixed feelings with this call for help, because after all — who sold MySQL in the first place?"

Comments

Own fault

[sopssa]

Maybe he shouldn't had sold it in the first time, so he wouldn't be crying it back now?

It's like you broke up with your girlfriend and then go crying her back when she has found a new guy, while you're having no luck.

Re:Own fault

[Thanshin]

It's like you broke up with your girlfriend and then go crying her back when she has found a new guy, while you're having no luck.

Or, to put it in Slashdot terms:

It's like you broke up with your car and then go crying it back when it has found a new owner, while you're having no luck finding another car.

Re:Own fault

[PizzaAnalogyGuy]

If you go to a pizza joint and order a buffalo chicken style pizza with tender chicken breast, hot sauce, and onions with provolone and American cheeses on a cheddar crust, and eat it with a big glass of mountain dew, you can't just go back and say "Now that I think of it, I would rather have had Hawaiian style pan-pizza with sliced ham, bacon, pineapple and roasted red peppers with provolone cheese on a parmesan crust". You've made your deal already. If you want an another pizza, you have to buy it again.

Me too!

[TheRaven64]

I, too, would love to sell something for a billion dollars and then have it given back.

Re:Me too!

[onefriedrice]

It's not as if he was unaware of the danger of the death of free software.

The supposed death of free software and a "free internet" is just the distraction he's trying to use. MySQL is open source. Even if Oracle relicenses future releases of MySQL under terms that are less free, we still have the same MySQL as we've always had with the same free terms. If it were ever to be an issue, a fork would happen immediately and/or we'd see increased use of PostgreSQL. Either way, the "internet" will be kept free regardless. I don't know much about Monty, but my prejudgment is that he's slime.

Not just his blog

[dals_rule]

He also spammed everybody who's ever been dumb enough to let him get anywhere near their e-mail address with the same self-serving, hypocritical screed...

No he doesn't

[wiredlogic]

This has been hashed out before. Monty wants to force the legitimate owner of MySQL to give up its rights to the documentation and proprietary parts of the source code so he can deploy his own commercial product using MariaDB. It's that simple. He got a big payoff when he cashed out and now he wants to double dip by getting back for free what he has already been compensated for.

He's just a greedy hypocritical troll

[tomhudson]

Original source

Background: MySQL is an open-source database used by millions. Originally developed by closely-held Swedish company MySQL AB, it was sold to Sun Microsystems Inc in January 2008. Sun is now in the process of being acquired Oracle Corporation. The deal is still awaiting European regulatory approval.

Not happy with selling MySQL AB to Sun for a cool billion, Monty Widenius is now trolling regulators, the media, and anyone who will listen in his efforts to get back control of "his" database (without having to give back the money).

European regulators still don't "get" the open-source software model

The Europeans are holding up their approval of the Sun-Oracle deal because of concerns that the acquisition will reduce competition in the database industry. Oracle Corp, which is already the dominant player in large-scale corporate databases, already "controls" several open-source database products such as Oracle Berkeley DB and the InnoDB transactional storage engine for MysQL

The reason I put "controls" in quotes is because it's very difficult to actually exert full control an open-source project, especially one that is licensed under the GPL or similar open-source license. It would probably be more accurate to say that Oracle "sponsors" both BerkeleyDB and InnoDB.

It's all about being an unabashed hypocrite

Widenius was originally able to control MySQL by insisting that the copyright for all code contributed by outsiders be assigned to MySQL AB. By doing this, Widenius was able to "dual-license" MySQL, with both a free GPL version and a paid commercial version.

This licensing scheme was good enough when Widenius was in control of MySQL AB, but now that Oracle is buying Sun, suddenly Widenius wants both the licensing scheme changed to something that would allow his new company to sell modified copies without having to release the source code for their changes, and to have Oracle turn over control of MySQL to someone other than Oracle - perhaps the EU should consider (nudge nudge, wink wink) his new company, Monty Program AB?

Calls the GPL licensing scheme an "infection", wants the EU to violate international treaties

You can read more about the attempt to get the Europeans to retroactively change the licensing scheme from the GPL to something more "Monty Widenius-friendly":

We would like to draw attention to the fact that some major concerns about the effects of the proposed transaction could be somewhat alleviated by requiring that all versions of MySQL source code previously released under the GPLv2 license (whether in a General Availability, Release Candidate, Beta, Alpha release, or as public bazaar or bitkeeper revision control trees) must be released under a more liberal open source license that is usable also by the OEM users and would also create an opportuity for other service vendors to compete with offerings comparable to MySQL Enterprise.

In other words, he wants the European Union to violate Articles 9 and 12 of the Bern Convention on Copyrights and retroactively change the license from the GPL, which requires him to share any changes he makes to source code covered by the GPL, to a license that would let him take from the original authors, but not give back anything in return.

The "copyleft/infection" principle of the GPL license represents a particular obstacle not only to revenue generation by the fork vendor but also to the overall adoption and market penetration of MySQL, MySQL forks and MySQL storage engines....

When we were kids, our parents told us "share and share alike." The authors who contributed source code under the GPL adhered to this principle. If you don't want to share your changes, simply don't "borrow" their