Oracle May 'Fork Itself' With MySQL Moves

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Oracle May 'Fork Itself' With MySQL Moves

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday September 27, 2011 @12:11AM from the slowly-and-surly dept.

New submitter packetrat writes "Ars Technica analyzes the recent commercial additions by Oracle to MySQL Enterprise and the additional unrest it's added to the community. Oracle may be throwing itself out of the community as it pushes more customers to look at fully open-source alternatives."

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Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by sander · 2011-09-27 00:19 · Score: 1, Insightful

The part about pushing people to consider alternatives seems to be founded on very thin ice - the alternatives do not actually offer you the functionality you woudl have to pay for in case of using "Oracle" MySQL, and also, if you use Oracle MySQL to get the for pay features and support, you would select teh system you run it on based on what is supported - just the same as you do with any database you pay support for.
1. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 00:37 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What kind of functionality do you want that PostgreSQL can't provide?
2. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 00:42 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Job security: corrupted MyISAM/InnoDB, senseless tuning, corrupted replication all ensure lasting employment.
3. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 00:42 · Score: 0
  
  Hate to admit it, but a +insightful is in order.
  I hope free and open alternatives can compete somewhat so that at least some people can make do with them and leave evil Oracle behind.
  Of course, legally Oracle is well within their rights to pursue an "open core" model and lock you in with proprietary extensions or whatever, but legal and right(tm) isn't always the same. Fuck those fucking fuckers!
4. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by dintech · 2011-09-27 00:44 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  No, Oracle. Another example of where you're not listening to the community. We told you to go "fuck" yourself.
5. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:02 · Score: 1
  
  1) Forks such as MariaDB and Percona already offer more functionality than MySQL.
  2) If you're worried about that sort of thing, you can buy an excellent support package or contracting agreement from Percona.
  
  In fact these days I'm not even sure why anyone would use Oracle MySQL instead of MariaDB or Percona.
6. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:08 · Score: 0, Funny
  
  Well, he did use it... once.
7. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:32 · Score: 0
  
  Comparable performance.
  MySQL does the job on much less hardware.
8. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by fuzzytv · 2011-09-27 01:33 · Score: 2
  
  Insightful? I have no clue what features is he talking about (and I guess I'm not alone), but there are solutions far better than MySQL. If you check what was commercialized, you can see it's damn damn basic functionality (e.g. the ability to use PAM authentication, or the features of MySQL Enterprise Backup). But the infinitely more important question for all MySQL users should be "What will be commercialized in the future?"
  And that's not FUD, that's a question everyone should ask before using any product (not just MySQL).
9. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by morgauxo · 2011-09-27 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  Pretty much everywhere I have worked uses MySQL. Nowhere that I have worked pays for it or uses any pay-for features. Most use the free and open source phpMyAdmin as an interface although my current workplace uses Navicat. Maybe they/we are missing out on some good stuff but it certainly is practical to go without.
10. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Coldfinger · 2011-09-27 01:51 · Score: 1
  
  A pronounceable name
11. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:52 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe they ARE listening, and their response is "Yeah? Well fuck you right back."
12. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by BitZtream · 2011-09-27 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  Yea, and you could probably use SQLite in its place. The point is that the OSS version is a very primitive system. If you want it to do something other than function as a network accessible collection of spreadsheet pages that speaks SQL, then you need to pay for it.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
13. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by sgt+scrub · 2011-09-27 02:11 · Score: 1
  
  Nowhere that I have worked pays for it
  Which is how it ended up in Sun's hands, which is how it ended up in Oracle's hands. If it is doing a great job for the company and your saving thousands of dollars not having to buy MsSQL or DB2 etc... why not toss the developer a couple dollars per copy? I mean $30 per machine to keep something alive is a damn good deal.
  
  --
  Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
14. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by laffer1 · 2011-09-27 02:21 · Score: 1
  
  For basic functionality Postgres and MySQL have equivalent functionality. Postgres is starting to catch up with replication and I suspect it will be better than MySQL's. However, it wouldn't kill the Postgres guys to add a few things to make it easier for MySQL users to migrate. The *gres types are very anal about standards and I'd agree that MySQL has done some user friendly but craptastic things to their SQL dialect. Why not make a standard package of mysql wrappers written as procedures or something with postgres that users can enable?
  I just migrated a web app from MySQL 4.1 to Postgres 9.0. The worst part was differences with dates and the pickyness of postgres with joins. In postgres or ingres, the order of joins matters and group by/order by/having and distinct are subtly different.
  Conversely, I saw a lot of strange problems at my previous employer with Percona when they migrated from MySQL 5.0. We had a lot of queries act up, weird sort orders, etc. It wasn't a deal breaker, but it was a nightmare for QA and developers to get the app ported in a week. Half the bugs were database related.
  I'm sticking with MySQL for my own projects. 5.5 is rather nice.
  
  --
  MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
15. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by fusiongyro · 2011-09-27 02:26 · Score: 1
  
  Either you can't be bothered to edit the configuration file, or you don't care about your data still being there tomorrow.
16. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by duguk · 2011-09-27 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  Either you can't be bothered to edit the configuration file, or you don't care about your data still being there tomorrow.
  So if I don't edit the configuration file, PostgreSQL will delete all my data? Fantastic!
17. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2011-09-27 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  Ah, yes - a nice MySQL versus PostgreSQL flame war makes a refreshing change from our usual Apple versus Linux versus Microsoft flame wars.
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
18. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 02:41 · Score: 0
  
  So everybody who refuses to investigate every line of configuration suddenly doesn't care about his data?
  Whatever (perceived) problem with reliability of MySQL DBs exists can be fixed with a back-up. (And back-ups are sort'a mandatory anyway.) You do it once - and it just works afterward.
  I do not see how one similarly cheap can fix (permanently) the Postgre's relatively high costs of administration.
19. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Mitchell314 · 2011-09-27 03:04 · Score: 2
  
  Post - gress - skwull. Ain't that hard :P . At least they didn't name it after some obscure dodecasyllabic Aztec god.
  
  --
  I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
20. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Synn · 2011-09-27 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  This is completely bullshit. I've designed MySQL clusters that, in the initial rollout, needed to be able to handle 200k inserts per second and then be able to scale up from there. And we did it on EC2 for 1k a month worth of systems.
  MySQL is an extremely powerful tool.
21. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by lgarner · 2011-09-27 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  MySQL licensing has always been a whole lot more than a "couple dollars" per host. And MySQL AB never had an option to pay what you feel like.
22. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by tripleevenfall · 2011-09-27 03:58 · Score: 1
  
  Postgre Ogres are the least entertaining of all trolls...
23. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-09-27 04:03 · Score: 1
  
  And you can always spin it into GPL vs BSDL flame war for bonus points - it's like two in one!
24. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 04:19 · Score: 0
  
  So true. I mean other than that whole .org tld, what does postgresql do that could be considered non-trivial, eh? dumbfuck.
25. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by theshowmecanuck · 2011-09-27 04:35 · Score: 2
  
  In most database systems the join order matters, especially if you use ansi style syntax. This is a known way to improve query performance. Order the joins to so that you limit as much as possible the number of rows returned early on; and as simply as possible using highly selective queries where the columns involved in the join has either unique or a high percentage of unique values (>90%). Then place the more complex/less selective joins (i.e. on columns with less unique values) or any necessary subqueries following. I'm surprise you never noticed this in MySQL, or perhaps you were using non-ansi style queries.
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
26. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by JordanL · 2011-09-27 05:22 · Score: 2
  
  Why do tech-minded people always seem to need to create obtuse and obviously false exaggerations for the purpose of conveying their point? Use your words and say what you mean.
  
  Posts like this don't make you look clever, they make you look like a caricature.
  
  There are plenty of ways to administer the free version of MySQL to get very good performance and options. Just because you have not been able to do that does not mean it cannot be done.
  
  I think the point that was being made, however, was that if you want to put in that much effort, why wouldn't you use a database like Postgres that actually was built for you to do that?
  
  --
  FanFictionRecs.net
27. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by qpqp · 2011-09-27 05:23 · Score: 2
  
  At least they didn't name it after some obscure dodecasyllabic Aztec god.
  There's no such concept. According to Wikipedia the longest name is: "Itztlacoliuhqui-Ixquimilli - god of stone, obsidian, coldness hardness, and castigation. Aspect of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli"
  
  Refs:
  http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/aztec-mythology.php?_gods-list
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_mythology
28. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Man+Eating+Duck · 2011-09-27 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  Either you can't be bothered to edit the configuration file, or you don't care about your data still being there tomorrow.
  PostgreSQL even has pretty sensible defaults out of the box compared to other heavy-duty DBs according to my very humble experience. Once I tried out a variety of "Enterprise-level" DBs when our IT department simply couldn't manage to fix our dog-slow production DB2 server which hosts a fairly simple db accessed by fairly complex queries, some of which would require minutes to run. I'm by no means a DB admin, but were pretty exasperated by their lack of competence, and decided to try my hand.
  The results were something like this (MySQL was not an option at the time due to a lack of enforced referential integrity, among other things):
  * Oracle: Even slower by default, not worth the effort to tune for a non-expert. I tried, but didn't get very far.
  * SQL server: Slightly faster with a little basic tuning
  * PostgreSQL: Blazingly fast, as in orders of magnitude ahead of the three commercial ones, with default options and no tuning at all.
  At first I thought I'd missed something obvious with pg, but it returned everything it should, it was simply incredibly more efficient for this use case than the alternatives. Queries which required about two minutes on the huge DB2-server would run in less than two seconds on my desktop in pgsql.
  As it turned out the IT guys refused to run anything which didn't cost heaps of money (that was literally their opinion, free/cheap was not an option, Oracle would have been fine). In the process of tuning I also learned a little bit about performance analysis, and managed to turn the DB2 server into something usable by creating a few indexes. Still PostgreSQL would run circles around it, I still don't know why, but it might create indexes as needed or something like that.
  If someone who actually know anything about DBs could comment on this huge performance difference I'd love to read it!
  
  --
  Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
29. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Man+Eating+Duck · 2011-09-27 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  This is a known way to improve query performance. Order the joins to so that you limit as much as possible the number of rows returned early on; and as simply as possible using highly selective queries where the columns involved in the join has either unique or a high percentage of unique values (>90%).
  Isn't that the job of the RDBMS query planner/optimizer? It knows a lot more about the actual number of rows in each table than the developer did when he wrote the queries. I'm sure there are reasons, this is not a sarcastic question (and I'm no db expert), but I would like to know :)
  
  --
  Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
30. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by GPLHost-Thomas · 2011-09-27 05:43 · Score: 1
  
  Other day, same /. topic, same answer to silly people that thinks Oracle owns it all. I was about to write more or less what you wrote, thanks for doing so. If you have moderator points, please mod parent up!!!
31. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by FromFrom · 2011-09-27 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  In most database systems (e.g. SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, PostgreSQL) the query gets optimized by the system. There might be ways to get more control but normally that shouldn't be necessary.
32. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Chrisq · 2011-09-27 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe they ARE listening, and their response is "Yeah? Well fuck you right back."
  The difference is that Larry is waving wads of banknotes at you from the back of his yatch at the same time.
33. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by dintech · 2011-09-27 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  I don't know what the big deal is. Oracle have been fucking us for years...
34. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by fatphil · 2011-09-27 10:38 · Score: 1
  
  Do you know of a good reference for how to keep as close to the intersection of MySQL and PostgreSQL? I currently use MySQL (using the perl DBI wrappers) for everything but have no loyalty to it, it just does the job. The idea of being able to just switch out the back end with minimum coding effort is appealing.
  
  --
  Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
35. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by theshowmecanuck · 2011-09-27 11:39 · Score: 1
  
  If there are lot of tables being joined the optimizer might not always do what you want it to do. Indexes can be ignored if there isn't a high enough degree of selectivity in the column(s) they are on. etc. In the former case, at least some databases will (or have in the past... e.g. Postgres) start grouping join statements and then amalgamating the groups in order not to have the optimizer be a limiting step in the process. In the latter, if an index isn't used there likely won't be statistics on the columns so how is it to know what approach to use... generally it will revert to full table scan. In these cases the RDBMS can use the order of the joins or be helped with query hints. Now that may not be the case any more, but it wouldn't surprise me if database optimizers still choke a little if you have a lot of tables in the query (like more than ten). And yes, I know generally speaking that you might have more issues going on if you need that many tables (or decide to use that many tables) in a query. But sometimes it is necessary. Just not a good idea to do it all the time. :)
  
  --
  -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
36. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by ahodgson · 2011-09-27 11:56 · Score: 1
  
  PostgreSQL has been faster than MySQL or at least comparably fast in any realistic use case for years. Try again.
37. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by kabloom · 2011-09-27 12:38 · Score: 1
  
  You probably want support for applications that were developed against MySQL alone, and only work in MySQL's dialect of SQL. Not all DB apps are DBMS agnostic.
38. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Sxooter · 2011-09-27 12:52 · Score: 1
  
  QUOTE: The worst part was differences with dates and the pickyness of postgres with joins
  Urgh. The ANSI standard very clearly states that if you mix implicit and explicit joins, the explicit joins go first. So, this query:
  select * from a,b join c on (a.id=c.id)
  won't work in any compliant database, because a.id doesn't exist yet when joining b to c. And guess what happened in MySQL v5.1? That type of join started throwing an error just like pgsql does.
  
  --
  
  --- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
39. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by DeathFromSomewhere · 2011-09-27 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  You are a true nerd my friend. I salute you.
  
  --
  -1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
40. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 15:25 · Score: 0
  
  They were explicit left joins
41. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Sxooter · 2011-09-27 20:16 · Score: 1
  
  PostgreSQL will reorder joins as it pleases to make more efficient joins. Note that outer joins can be reordered because changing their order changes the meaning of the joins.
  
  --
  
  --- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
42. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Sxooter · 2011-09-28 04:25 · Score: 1
  
  outer joins CAN'T be reordered...
  
  --
  
  --- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
43. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-28 18:25 · Score: 0
  
  Well, it runs the largest banks in South America, handles a couple of billion transactions in France, etc. etc. But that might be trivial to you...
44. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-28 19:29 · Score: 0
  
  > In most database systems the join order matters, especially if you use ansi style syntax
  That is simply not true. Most modern optimizers (i.e. those that are cost based) don't care about the order *especially* when using the JOIN keyword.
  But then the MySQL optimizer is known to be quite limited, so I wouldn't be surprised if MySQL can be tuned with this technique
45. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-29 11:48 · Score: 0
  
  So you discovered indexing... the road to being the king of the hill DBA is almost over!
46. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Man+Eating+Duck · 2011-09-29 22:06 · Score: 1
  
  So you discovered indexing...
  the road to being the king of the hill DBA is almost over!
  Well, the whole point was that I basically have no clue... which is still mostly true. And yeah, indices to avoid full table scans are neat :)
  It's kind of fun to tinker like that, though, especially when I get it working. Of course it's bad that I should have to do so in production.
  
  --
  Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
47. Re:Pushing to look at alternatives, really? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-01 06:16 · Score: 0
  
  I've personally donated money to a couple of projects that I use/care about myself. I'm not interested in being my employers' conscious though. However, I don't necessarily think the community NEEDED to support Sun anyway. If the MariaDB developers keep it going, updated and relevant then why support some company? If people are choosing to share the work then why do we need Sun or Oracle?
Nonsense. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-09-27 00:20 · Score: 4, Funny

It's OurSQL now, freetards.
1. Re:Nonsense. by Joce640k · 2011-09-27 00:49 · Score: 2
  
  Is anybody even slightly surprised. Oracle is a company which prides itself on gouging enterprise customers for huge amounts of money. The CEO owns one of the worlds largest yachts, etc., etc.
  Me? This doesn't even warrant an eyebrow raise.
  
  --
  No sig today...
2. Re:Nonsense. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:08 · Score: 0
  
  So annoying.
  
  And Shuttleworth gets around on one of these:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Global_Express
  
  And, oh, Larry Page? I think the point is clear...
  
  Becoming wealthy and being FOSS friendly are not mutually exclusive.
3. Re:Nonsense. by shentino · 2011-09-27 01:10 · Score: 1
  
  Also notice how quickly they sued Google after acquiring Sun.
  That and how they tried to shred the old sun website which would probably establish promissory estoppel.
4. Re:Nonsense. by BitZtream · 2011-09-27 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  Right, because no one else has a copy (wayback machine) and no lawyer would think to call them out for destroying evidence and force them to pull out a backup for proof.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
5. Re:Nonsense. by TheCRAIGGERS · 2011-09-27 02:24 · Score: 1
  
  Right, because no one else has a copy (wayback machine) and no lawyer would think to call them out for destroying evidence and force them to pull out a backup for proof.
  You are operating under the (probably false) pretense that they are not ignorant, illogical beings used to making problems of various types disappear through the liberal application of money and power.
6. Re:Nonsense. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 03:17 · Score: 0
  
  They were able to sue quickly because Sun knew all about how Google was violating their licenses and they handed that over to Oracle on a silver platter. If anything they probably used the prospect of a lucrative lawsuit to bolster their value. Sun was not the altruistic party in all of that mess.
  They intentionally designed the licensing for Java so that implementations in the manner prescribed by Google would require payment. They were fully aware of what Google was doing but lacked the means to pursue it themselves. If they actually did care about Google and want to protect them from Oracle rather than discuss at length those violations with Oracle's lawyers they could have simply granted a free license to Google to cover whatever Google had done.
Same old thing... by GameboyRMH · 2011-09-27 00:26 · Score: 2

...that happens with everything Oracle touches. MySQL users will switch to MariaDB just as OO.org users switched to LibreOffice.

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
1. Re:Same old thing... by Just+Brew+It! · 2011-09-27 00:34 · Score: 2
  
  I wonder how long it'll be before they start screwing with VirtualBox...
2. Re:Same old thing... by GameboyRMH · 2011-09-27 00:36 · Score: 1
  
  I'm surprised there's been no talk of a VirtualBox fork yet. But yeah I'm sure it won't be long now...
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
3. Re:Same old thing... by geminidomino · 2011-09-27 01:05 · Score: 1
  
  They already did. It was minor -- moving the 'closed' extensions into a plugin rather than having two separate versions -- and not a big deal in itself, except I haven't been able to make USB work right ever since...
4. Re:Same old thing... by stephanruby · 2011-09-27 01:22 · Score: 1
  
  ...just as every single Hudson user is switching to Jenkins
  The only users Oracle is keeping are, the Windows 98 users, the users that refuse to upgrade to anything.
5. Re:Same old thing... by GameboyRMH · 2011-09-27 01:27 · Score: 1
  
  People still use Windows 98 these days!? 8-(
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
6. Re:Same old thing... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:28 · Score: 0
  
  Will switch to MariaDB? More like HAVE switched to MariaDB. The only thing missing now is full distro support.
7. Re:Same old thing... by Karzz1 · 2011-09-27 01:36 · Score: 1
  
  The only thing missing now is full distro support.
  
  As I recall, a few months ago Gentoo made "mysql" a virtual slot and defaults now to mariadb as the actual database.
  
  --
  Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
8. Re:Same old thing... by Just+Brew+It! · 2011-09-27 01:49 · Score: 2
  
  USB in guests still works fine for me (well maybe "fine" is too strong of a word... let's just say it didn't seem to get any worse when they switched to the plugin architecture). I run a Ubuntu 10.04 host with Windows and Linux guests of various flavors, so YMMV if your setup is different.
  The minor weirdness I've noticed is that the Open Source binaries which are available on their site (without the plugin) have no remote console capability, even though the OSE version available on most Linux distros has a built-in VNC console server. So they effectively still have two separate versions...
9. Re:Same old thing... by DaveHowe · 2011-09-27 02:09 · Score: 1
  
  MariaDB is not much if any better - Ok, I can see his original point - he shared the source to MySQL so that he could get the benefits of community bugfixing, but retained the commercial rights so that he could sell commercial usage licences and still make money.
  I can also see how, when offered a buttload of money by SUN, he could get up front and in one lump sum what he might make in years of normal trading - and SUN, having no db solution of its own to compete, was as good a new owner as any.
  However, with MariaDB he is trying to have his cake and eat it too - he wishes to start a new "community" edition of MySQL so he can still steer the project, despite having taken his pieces of silver and ran once already. Despite (or even because of) his "experience" in running the MySQL project, I would not consider him a particularly good choice to control a fork.
  
  --
  -=DaveHowe=-
10. Re:Same old thing... by duguk · 2011-09-27 02:30 · Score: 1
  
  USB in guests still works fine for me (well maybe "fine" is too strong of a word... let's just say it didn't seem to get any worse when they switched to the plugin architecture). I run a Ubuntu 10.04 host with Windows and Linux guests of various flavors, so YMMV if your setup is different.
  The minor weirdness I've noticed is that the Open Source binaries which are available on their site (without the plugin) have no remote console capability, even though the OSE version available on most Linux distros has a built-in VNC console server. So they effectively still have two separate versions...
  I've been using the binary version (via Gentoo) of VirtualBox, and it "supports" Terminal Services for connecting to the console. Never works of course.
  
  Are you implying that the compiled version has VNC instead? If so, I'll start recompiling right now - I don't see why they chose Terminal Services for connecting to one instance...
11. Re:Same old thing... by Just+Brew+It! · 2011-09-27 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding is the Terminal Services (a.k.a. RDP) support is part of the proprietary plugin; the version most distros have in their repositories has VNC support enabled. AFAIK it is a compile time switch in the OSE version.
  Try typing VBoxHeadless --help and see if any VNC options are listed.
  I have one system (at home) that is running the OSE version from the Ubuntu VirtualBox PPA, and it definitely supports VNC.
12. Re:Same old thing... by duguk · 2011-09-27 02:56 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding is the Terminal Services (a.k.a. RDP) support is part of the proprietary plugin; the version most distros have in their repositories has VNC support enabled. AFAIK it is a compile time switch in the OSE version.
  Try typing VBoxHeadless --help and see if any VNC options are listed.
  I have one system (at home) that is running the OSE version from the Ubuntu VirtualBox PPA, and it definitely supports VNC.
  Brilliant! Thanks for the tip, will give it a go.
13. Re:Same old thing... by duguk · 2011-09-27 03:01 · Score: 1
  
  My understanding is the Terminal Services (a.k.a. RDP) support is part of the proprietary plugin; the version most distros have in their repositories has VNC support enabled. AFAIK it is a compile time switch in the OSE version.
  Try typing VBoxHeadless --help and see if any VNC options are listed.
  I have one system (at home) that is running the OSE version from the Ubuntu VirtualBox PPA, and it definitely supports VNC.
  You're absolutely right - app-emulation/virtualbox has support for VNC, app-emulation/virtualbox-bin has RDP.
  
  I had no idea VBox supported VNC. Thanks again, that'll save me a few headaches!
14. Re:Same old thing... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 03:41 · Score: 0
  
  Funnily, VirtualBox is the one community that they didn't screw with. In fact, it became even more open under Oracle than it was under Sun.
  However, everything else, from what I've seen, has been really mismanaged.
15. Re:Same old thing... by Chrisq · 2011-09-27 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  ...just as every single Hudson user is switching to Jenkins
  Really? Both of them!
16. Re:Same old thing... by Nivag064 · 2011-09-27 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  Well I think you are right, that a lot of users will migrate to MariaDB.
  
  However, a small but significant minority will migrate to PostgreSQL. Especially where data integrity and robustness in the face of power failure is important - or where there are lots of concurrent users and/or complicated queries required.
  
  Note that Postgres 9.0 had replication built in to the core, 9.1 had true serialisation, and 9.2 will be able use just indexes to satisfy some queries. There are a lot of other major functional and performance improvements I've omitted.
  
  Interesting, that people were moving from both MySQL and Oracle DB to Postgres, when it was still version 8.x and versions 9.x give even more reasons to move.
  
  I have worked with both MySQL and PostgreSQL. I find PostgreSQL much easier to work with: in installing and writing SQL queries. I keep reading that MySQL is 'easier' than PostgreSQL - yet, I have not seen anything to substantiate that, quite the reverse.
  
  I think you will find that a lot of corporates with heavy workloads currently using MySQL will seriously consider moving to Postgres. There are many considerations beyond the technical and performance issues - so not all of them will move to PostgreSQL. However, I think that more and more people will move away from MySQL, one way or another.
17. Re:Same old thing... by GameboyRMH · 2011-09-27 07:38 · Score: 1
  
  Well yeah PostgreSQL is better for serious database work, but MySQL is mostly used for the tiny database backends to websites, and is already overpowered for that task. Anyone who was using MySQL for anything more complicated/demanding than a website backend should have switched to PostgreSQL anyways.
  
  --
  "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
18. Re:Same old thing... by Bacon+Bits · 2011-09-27 09:11 · Score: 1
  
  We have a system here which runs HVAC software. We just "upgraded" the system from Win95 to Win98 SE after the old hardware died. We bought an old refurbished HP Evo d510 and used Win98 SE as that's all we had access to and all we could get drivers for. The software will not run in Windows 2000 or XP, nor will it run under Win98 in a VM due to a hardware dongle on the parallel port (the software installs, but never communicates with the HVAC system itself).
  The system has been "scheduled for replacement" for about 6 years, but they keep putting it off.
  I have friends in similar situations with legacy systems that only work on Win9x, Win2k, NT 4, and even one who is stuck with an NT 3.51 system.
  Welcome to modern IT!
  
  --
  The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
19. Re:Same old thing... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 14:52 · Score: 0
  
  You *do* realize that Sun was for sale because it paid Monty way, way too much money for MySQL, and there's no sign that Monty has fixed any of the fundamental problems with MySQL? The "root" user security is still a laughable joke, active-active mirroring is still an add-on and unstable nightmare, and it still ignores standards in favor of unnecessary and destabilizing speed optimizations. There are gazillions of perl and Java widgets to access MySQL, it's true. But they're flawed by the tendency to re-invent the wheel, and stick a special wiggling bit on it so that it won't fit next to *any other wheel* and won't fit in your trunk.
  I don't run into this with PostgreSQL. The speed has reached MySQL levels, replication and multiple servers are far more reliable, and I don't have to clean up after the Perl monkeyboys who are trying to write Hamlet by submitting random widgets to CPAN until they get the whole script written with the titles of the modules in ascii art.
Surely only an issue for Windows... by Ynot_82 · 2011-09-27 00:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

...and any other OS without package management
Most Linux distros will simply just point the mysql packages to mariadb (or whatever fork), and end-users will not have to do (or know) anything
Upgrade, continue as usual, and wonder why the windows people are jumping up & down...
1. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Errol+backfiring · 2011-09-27 00:38 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Just out of curiosity, I did upgrade to MariaDB about a week ago, and I was pleasantly surprised how easy the transition went.
  
  --
  Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
2. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Richard_at_work · 2011-09-27 00:39 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Nice to see someone try to push the "Windows" angle...
  In all truth, this doesn't affect anyone at all - MySQL is GPLed so, according to RMS, it should already be protected from Big Bad Oracle... Is Oracle really required to move MySQL forward? If not, then why the complaints - and if so, then does the fact that it is GPLed really mean anything at all?
  In reality, Oracle has been bound by its merger with Sun to actually offer more assurances than Sun was ever required to offer - 4 years of support. What did Sun offer? Nothing.
  Technically, MySQL should be in a better position after the Oracle merger...
3. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Ynot_82 · 2011-09-27 00:49 · Score: 1
  
  You've missed the point of my post, but never mind
  MySQL is safe because it's GPLed, allowing the code can be forked, hence MariaDB et al
4. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by somersault · 2011-09-27 00:52 · Score: 1
  
  Is Oracle really required to move MySQL forward? If not, then why the complaints - and if so, then does the fact that it is GPLed really mean anything at all?
  It means that anyone can fork it and continue to move it forward.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
5. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Richard_at_work · 2011-09-27 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  No, infact I didn't miss it at all - but you seem to have missed mine.
  If MySQL is GPLed, and can be forked, then why the interest in what Oracle does to the trunk?
6. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:32 · Score: 0
  
  FUD and postgreSQL weenies trolling. Negative articles generate rage and lots of clicks. Posting a "nothing to see here" story doesn't generate ad impressions. The bigger the opinionated BS an article can generate in responses, the better the "author" is for the newsoutlet. Clicks = Money. That's all there is to it.
7. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Raenex · 2011-09-27 01:43 · Score: 2
  
  Most Linux distros will simply just point the mysql packages to mariadb (or whatever fork), and end-users will not have to do (or know) anything
  I don't see this happening. MySQL is still open source and available, even if the extensions are not, so it will continue to be distributed by open source distributions. The name is also trademarked, so pointing to mariadb or otherwise when the user goes to install MySQL is a trademark violation.
8. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by fuzzytv · 2011-09-27 01:44 · Score: 1
  
  That's not true. MySQL always had dual licensing - GPL and MySQL License. MySQL always held all the rights to the source code. This is basically the reason why MySQL never formed a truly open developer community, as that would make this 'license drop' impossible (or much more difficult). Now Oracle owns MySQL, thus all the rights.
  They may drop GPL licensing any time they want (OK, there were some promises to EU) and provide further versions only under their own license. Will that happen tomorrow? I don't think so. Will that happen next year? I don't know? And I doubt Oracle has an exact plan what to do with MySQL.
9. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:49 · Score: 0
  
  Aye, I went to install mysql on opensuse yesterday, it simply pointed me to mariadb and everything functioned as normal.
10. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by BitZtream · 2011-09-27 02:04 · Score: 2
  
  That doesn't change anything what so ever.
  If they drop GPL tomorrow, you don't lose anything. You still have the source from today. You just won't have the source from tomorrow or days in the future.
  You aren't going to lose anything if they change license schemes, you simply won't continue to get a free ride FROM ORACLE, you'll have to get it elsewhere.
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
11. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by fuzzytv · 2011-09-27 02:37 · Score: 1
  
  Sure you do lose lot of things. What about bugfixes, for example?
  Yes, you can use the sources from the GPL-times, the businesses really don't want to do that on their own. And forking a project successfully really is not that simple as it loks like. There are forks of MySQL, and maybe one of them will be a success in the future (I'd be glad to see that), but which one? And what are the guarantees?
12. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 02:43 · Score: 0
  
  I am afraid you did, in fact, miss the point.
  The statement relates to:
  1- An assumption that Oracle will finish screwing up MySQL; perhaps by withholding critical security updates, necessitating either buying there product or an upgrade.
  2- Those who are already running MySQL on there servers for some production purpose.
  On Linux; thanks to an assumption of GPL and some quite evolved package managers that have the concept that an event like this may hapeen- switching from MySQL to MariaDB or another fork is very simple; the package manager handles all the overwrites, and since it's a fork initially all functionality remains the same. You change your root package, and it upgrades from then on, can even be done on a 'live' system (though you should check it on a dummy system first, just in case).
  On the windows side of things, baring someone building a conversion tool, it will not be this simple. Because of the way that windows works you could end up with MySQL and MariaDB running simultaneously; so you'll have to manually port over your databases, and then uninstall MySQL (But be sure that when uninstalling MySQL it does not take out some of MariaDBs files in the process; so testing this whole procedure on a dummy system first is required.). It's not a lot more steps, nor a lot more complicated; but it is more time intensive and has more room for failure.
13. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Synn · 2011-09-27 03:09 · Score: 1
  
  No, infact I didn't miss it at all - but you seem to have missed mine.
  If MySQL is GPLed, and can be forked, then why the interest in what Oracle does to the trunk?
  The interest is that it looks like the trunk is a dead end. This gives more press to MariaDB and could eventually mean distros drop MySQL going forward in favor of it.
14. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Richard_at_work · 2011-09-27 03:43 · Score: 1
  
  You seem to be going a lot out of your way there to make the Windows path seem difficult, when infact its not really any different to your Linux version of events - there is no magic reason why only MySQL databases on Linux retain compatibility between the MySQL trunk and your fabled fork, if it works for Linux, then it will work for Windows. Stop MySQL, install the fork, tell it the location of the database files and configuration files, do some testing, and then remove MySQL. Wow, that was infinitely more convoluted than your Linux steps...
15. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by GPLHost-Thomas · 2011-09-27 05:49 · Score: 1
  
  You know what? FUCK trademarks. I'm a happy firef^Wiceweasel user! :)
16. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Jonner · 2011-09-27 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  Nice to see someone try to push the "Windows" angle...
  In all truth, this doesn't affect anyone at all - MySQL is GPLed so, according to RMS, it should already be protected from Big Bad Oracle... Is Oracle really required to move MySQL forward? If not, then why the complaints - and if so, then does the fact that it is GPLed really mean anything at all?
  In reality, Oracle has been bound by its merger with Sun to actually offer more assurances than Sun was ever required to offer - 4 years of support. What did Sun offer? Nothing.
  Technically, MySQL should be in a better position after the Oracle merger...
  TFA mentions several features which are apparently not released under the GPL (it uses the term "commercial" which can be assumed to mean "proprietary").
17. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 08:56 · Score: 0
  
  They don't need to claim to be MySQL. Clients just connect to the port, do the transactions, and get back results. They don't care. Package managers have MySQL Server metapackages that "depend on the latest package". To switch, they change the dependency to mariadb & state the trademark ownership in the package description. OpenOffice.org Ubuntu packages already say "this is a transitional package, replacing the OpenOffice.org packaging with LibreOffice packaging. It makes no claim of trademark, but links to the OpenOffice website.
18. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by F.Ultra · 2011-09-27 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  Because they employ a significant amount of the people usually developing MySQL and getting the community to grow from what-ever-level-it-might-be might take a while?
19. Re:Surely only an issue for Windows... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-28 15:59 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, well so was OpenOffice. Deal with it.
  And in Arch Linux (for instance), all you've got to do is remove the mysql package and add a "replaces=mysql" line to the mariadb package. This is a total non-issue.
I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 00:39 · Score: 5, Informative

Oracle offers some added value if you need it. If you are stuck on mysql for some reason and you project outgrew what the free verions handles, it may be reasonable to pay some money for well defined support of new features.
If you don't need it (and that applies to me and most people here), then just happily use the free version. If you are not convinced the support for the new features is worth the money, then don't buy it.
So, yes, oracle may have forked it. They are neither the first company to do something like this (see ghostscript) nor will they be the last. History shows that usually the commercial "value-added" distribution may be marginal in the installed base, but if the company plays the cards right its customers and the company can profit from the commercial version.
1. Re:I dont get the discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 00:44 · Score: 0
  
  Because Oracle cannot be trusted. Oracle is clearly no friend of foss. Consider Oracle's lawsuit against Google. Java is supposed to be free, but I guess Oracle never got the memo. I think foss developers would be wise to steer clear of Oracle anything.
2. Re:I dont get the discussion by somersault · 2011-09-27 00:54 · Score: 1
  
  Troll harder. Free software still has licenses. I think Google is actually obeying the license terms, but Oracle are trying to prove that they aren't.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
3. Re:I dont get the discussion by shentino · 2011-09-27 01:12 · Score: 1
  
  Why did the old Sun website go poof right before trial then?
  I cite this groklaw article to detail things: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20110810152617279
4. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  You dont understand it. oracle has to obey not license terms at all. Its their code.
5. Re:I dont get the discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:26 · Score: 0
  
  Can someone translate that post into English?
6. Re:I dont get the discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:27 · Score: 0
  
  Whoosh! Clearly went over your head. Unless Oracle has indemnified its user base of the product in question, the license has nothing to do with it. In fact, according to the license terms and YOUR logic, Oracle never filed suite against Google. But, well, we all know they did just like we all know you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.
7. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  You don't understand it. Oracle has to obey no license terms at all. Its their code.
8. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 01:55 · Score: 1
  
  Google doesn't distribute Android under the GPL, and because of that, they haven't been granted the rights to use any patents or copyright related to Java. The quotes from Sun in that Groklaw article don't contradict this.
9. Re:I dont get the discussion by somersault · 2011-09-27 02:03 · Score: 1
  
  according to the license terms and YOUR logic, Oracle never filed suite against Google
  What the hell are you talking about?
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
10. Re:I dont get the discussion by somersault · 2011-09-27 02:05 · Score: 1
  
  What? Oracle accused Google of not obeying the license.
  
  --
  which is totally what she said
11. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 02:15 · Score: 1
  
  No. They don't sue them for not obeying the license. They sue them for patent violations.
12. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 02:20 · Score: 1
  
  The GPL has nothing to do with it.
13. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 02:33 · Score: 1
  
  The GPL has everything to do with it, as it's the only way any Java patents or copyrights can be legally used.
14. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 03:03 · Score: 2
  
  This statement is plainly wrong. The patent grant for jvm implementors was never about open source, but always about implementing the platform as specified.
15. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 03:12 · Score: 2
  
  The problem is that Google didn't implement a conforming JVM, so there was no grant to use the patents. They could have gotten around this by forking the GPL version of Java, but they didn't want to.
16. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 03:31 · Score: 1
  
  No they could not have. They would have avoided a license problem but not the patent problem.
17. Re:I dont get the discussion by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 03:38 · Score: 0
  
  Oracle has to obey no license terms at all. Its their code.
  Ahhh, you mean "code" as in "code of ethics"? That's sounds very Ellisian.
18. Re:I dont get the discussion by Cable · 2011-09-27 03:53 · Score: 1
  
  Oracle bought out Sun and inherited these things.
  Oracle cannot be trusted because they sued Google? What makes Google more trustworthy? Will they give you the source code to Gmail?
  Java was like Netscape once, a free product and they made money by donations or selling the development or server tools. But Microsoft made Visual J++ and others had bastardized Java and it lost compatability. So Sun sued them over it and then changed how Java was licensed before Oracle bought them out.
  So basically since Java is so popular and due to lawsuits and changes in licenses Oracle is not to be trusted? Java can be downloaded for free still.
19. Re:I dont get the discussion by shutdown+-p+now · 2011-09-27 04:06 · Score: 1
  
  My impression was that Google implemented a "JVM" (or so Oracle says) for mobile devices. And patent grant never applied to those (because Sun wanted to monetize J2ME).
20. Re:I dont get the discussion by esocid · 2011-09-27 04:22 · Score: 1
  
  Oracle offers some added value if you need it. If you are stuck on mysql for some reason and you project outgrew what the free verions handles, it may be reasonable to pay some money for well defined support of new features.
  So how often does your company deal with government mandated use of MySQL standards? Does Oracle charge you based on how much memory you use, and how much traffic you get? Talk to someone who has to deal with their asinine practices, then you'll start to understand why people are getting so pissed at Oracle. Their either get a kick out of pissing off their end users, or they just don't give a shit since people have to use them.
  
  --
  Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
21. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  Sun explicitly licensed their code under the GPL, which includes the permission to copy, distribute, and modify under the GPL, so there would have been no patent violation.
22. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 04:33 · Score: 1
  
  What's a JVM or not is defined by the standards originally set out by Sun. Google didn't like the standard for mobiles so they decided to go with their own, one that was largely compatible with existing Java code but was not claimed to be Java (avoiding the trouble that Microsoft got into back in the 90s with their Java extensions). They avoided the trademark issues, but they ran into patent and copyright issues instead.
23. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  Violation of patents is independent from copyright.
24. Re:I dont get the discussion by drolli · 2011-09-27 06:17 · Score: 1
  
  No they just ran into the patent issues.
25. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  Not when the owner of both the patent and copyright gives you explicit permission to use, copy, and modify code that contains those patents. If what you said was true, then Sun wouldn't have been able to release closed source versions of Java without users violating their patents.
26. Re:I dont get the discussion by Raenex · 2011-09-27 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  They were also sued over copyright issues. The case is still pending.
27. Re:I dont get the discussion by owlstead · 2011-09-27 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  There is one thing that is a bit worrying in this regard: many times this kind of commercial addons are very useful. What happens if you want to introduce the same functionality using OSS? Will you get sued, ousted of the community or similar? They've done the same thing with the Java VM, and I am seriously wondering if the additions would not have come to the OSS variant if they weren't included.
Re:Finally by fuzzytv · 2011-09-27 01:20 · Score: 1

What is this 'open core' you're talking about? And how do the steps of Oracle, an uber-commercial corporation prove that 'open core' does not work?
Re:Finally by Raenex · 2011-09-27 01:31 · Score: 2

He's NOT using an alternative name for open source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_core
"Open core (a.k.a. proprietary relicensing[1]) is a business model where an open source product is also made available commercially with non-open-source additions. The name "open core" came into use in early 2010 but the business model had already existed for many years."
"open core" is mentioned in the article. To be honest, it's the first I've heard of it too, but it's a pretty good name for this model.
Heeding the advice of its frustrated customers ... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 01:50 · Score: 0

... Oracle has decided to fork itself.
Re:Finally by fuzzytv · 2011-09-27 01:58 · Score: 1

OK, I haven't heard about this term before. Shame on me ...
In that case I have to agree with the OP - the open core does not work. More precisely, it does not work for the users because they don't get the freedoms, just s nicely wrapped lock-in. I think Simon Phipps explains that quite nicely (see the link on the wiki page).
I'm not that sure if it works for Oracle, that's a different question. Maybe they'll achieve their goals, whatever they are.
I'd have no problem.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 02:30 · Score: 0

I'd have no problem telling them to go fork themselves...
My greatest hope for Oracle... by Trailer+Trash · 2011-09-27 03:09 · Score: 1

Is that it will go fork itself...

--
Do you have ESP?
PostgreSQL by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 05:54 · Score: 0

I just hope nobody buys PostgreSQL anytime soon.
It happened already by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-27 22:13 · Score: 0

Oracle has alredy forked itself. It acquired Sun and quickly set about forking everything. Great customer support- Forked. Channel partners and distributers - Forked. Great open source products- Forked that!. Access to online support tools- Totally Forked. We are Oracle and no we don't want you to use our products. Get Forked.
Don't mind the accent, I'm from Glasgow.
There is ... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-09-29 13:40 · Score: 0

always Firebird http://www.firebirdsql.org/ which is more advanced in many ways.