MySQL Man Pages Silently Relicensed Away From GPL

An anonymous reader writes "The MariaDB blog is reporting a small change to the license covering the man pages to MySQL. Until recently, the governing license was GPLv2. Now the license reads, 'This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit, perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited.'"

Comments

good

[Anonymous Coward]

GPL isn't a documentation license. The GPL itself isn't licensed under the GPL.

Re:good

[jedidiah]

Software is. This manpage change appears to be implying that the corresponding software is covered by some license other than some variant of the GPL as the given restrictions are incompatible with that license.

Re:good

[Forever Wondering]

From the blog, the old documentation said:

This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

IANAL, but it looks like a GPL violation to me.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

How so? If they own the copyright, they are free to relicense a piece of data (and more importantly any new versions of it) under any terms they wish.
This doesn't change the fact that the copy you downloaded previously under the GPL stays that way, and you can redistribute it indefinitely.

captcha: darlings

Re:good

[bws111]

It is not possible for the copyright holder to commit a license violation.

Re:good

[hairyfeet]

In what way? The owner of a software doesn't have to make every release of that software GPL, all the GPL does is make sure that releases under the GPL remain GPL so if you wanted to keep the old version, fork it, hand it out on CDs, whatever you want as long as you provide source there is nothing they can do about it.

The way you are describing it makes it sound like the GPL truly is viral, not really the impression you want to give I'm sure.

Re:good

[gmuslera]

Also, a change in a GPL code don't enable you to change its licence. If you took a GPL program, and modified it, then the modified version must be GPL too. A new version of MySQL should still be GPL, unless you do a complete rewrite.

Re:good

[shentino]

If outsiders contributed to it they are no longer the sole copyright owners.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a typical clueless "free as in leach" zealot. and the morons that modded you up are just morons.

Re: good

[aaarrrgggh]

If you hold the copyright, you can choose to license it however you want. What is untested in court is if a license change can retroactively apply to a fork.

Re:good

[eht]

MySQL was always dual licensed, they always required copyright to be assigned to them for contributions so they could monetize it on the side.

Re:good

[dfghjk]

"A new version of MySQL should still be GPL, unless you do a complete rewrite."

No it shouldn't. Even the same version shouldn't be if the licensors don't want it to be. Who cares about the owner's freedoms so long as RMS's are satiated, right?

This just exposes the lie of the GPL...that forcing itself on future software is somehow necessary to protect present interests. Anything released under the GPL will always and forever be released under the GPL. Extending to modifications is overreach to suit an agenda.

Re:good

[Forever Wondering]

They might be held to it under the principle of estoppel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel in particular, the Overview section, example 2.

However, the code/doc could probably be forked from the prior version. I believe that would be similar to the LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice (nee StarOffice). It's an open question whether that's worth it vs. putting the effort into MariaDB.

Personally, I don't use full featured databases other than the occasional hookup to an sqlite one. However, based on the last description of features, development model/roadmap, licensing, etc. for MariaDB I've read, I'd vote for it.

Perhaps folks that rely on mysql (e.g. the Wordpress community) could weigh in on the technical merits/difficulties of switching.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's legal. But this doesn't mean anything.

Yes, the copies you download are still GPL. And if you will never upgrade the server, they will never be obsolete.

Re:good

[bws111]

That would only apply to stuff already distributed under GPL. If you have a copy distributed under GPL then you are free to distribute, etc. However, there is nothing that could force the copyright holder to continue releasing under the GPL.

Being forced to release under GPL would be like the creditor being forced to forgive future debts just because he forgave a previous debt.

Re:good

[Forever Wondering]

In general, perhaps.

However, when Oracle took over Sun, it made public statements to the effect that the open version would remain that. If users/consumers took actions [to stay with mysql vs. bolting to Postgres], based on these statements, they may have suffered [actionable] harm.

Reading further down the [wiki] page, under the "reliance-based estoppels" section, Oracle's statements seem to be a "promissory estoppel".

Re: good

[postbigbang]

This all may be moot if the shift is away from MySQL to other competing products, even if those products have GPL MySQL code in them.

It's my belief that Oracle acquired Sun to get a full-stack of Oracle DB from hardware and storage through OS and enough Java and other code to stick it to their competitors. MySQL unlikely generates more than services revenue, rather than the core set of apps based on Oracle's cash cow db and enterprise business line of applications.

Apps and integration and services is the oil well in the basement, being pumped by the db. Oracle wants revenue, and if there are seemingly interesting continuations of projects and products that can do that, they live. Otherwise, they die-- unless they're used to poke competitors.

Re:good

[Bruce Perens]

If they own the copyright, they are free to relicense a piece of data

Sorry to be pedantic, but replace "a piece of data" with "a work of authorship". If there isn't the creative work of a human being involved, it's not copyrightable. And then we get to this:

17 CFR 102(b) In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work.

And that means that even when the hand of man is involved, a lot of things are still not copyrightable.

Re: good

[hairyfeet]

They can waste their mod points all they want they can't show me a SINGLE CASE, not one, where the GPL foundation was able to keep a company from changing the license to their own products. And I never said anything about retroactive, which is why I said you can fork the last GPL version and they can't do shit because if you tried to retroactively change a license you would be laughed out of court.

Kinda fucking sad that only the proprietary guy has actually read the fricking GPL, but show me anywhere where the FSF can control FUTURE licenses because its NOT IN THERE. all the GPL does is makes sure that particular release that was done under GPL then STAYS under GPL, they can change the license at any. time.they.want. and it does not matter because the version that is ALREADY GPL STAYS GPL, which was the whole fucking point, that you wouldn't come to depend on a piece of FOSS and have them pull the rug out from under you by pulling a switch.

But that does NOT give you the right to everything a company makes from that moment on, or even every single version of a particular software that they make because it is THEIR PROPERTY and if they want to make it GPL,MPL, if they want to say you have to do a fricking rain dance to get a copy of the latest version? they can do that. what they CAN'T DO is take what was already GPL and wave a magic wand and make it proprietary, it just does not work that way and no case law that I'm aware of lets a company change a license retroactively from whenever they feel like it. If the court allowed that then there wouldn't be any licenses, because you could never know if the deal you made today would be upheld tomorrow.

So its nothing to get your panties in a twist over guys, you can decide to be a dumbass and trust old Monty again (seriously guys look at the MariaDB license again, old Monty has it set up so all the code belongs to him, no reason he can't sell it out from under you again) or you can go to one of the other SQL variants or hell, if you want you and some other devs can take the last GPL version of MySQL and fork it and make something better. Make it belong to the actual community so it can't be sold and get behind that like you did with Libre office, why not do that? But this is a tempest in a teapot, who cares, you have options galore.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it is possible for the copyright holder to commit a license violation. A license is not ownership of a copyright. Just because you claim something is copyrighted doesn't actually mean that it is copyrighted. Put simply if they do not actually obtain a copyright on the work and claim it is and use the court system to enforce a common law copyright without actually verifying ownership, then they may have actually violated their own license terms. Essentially speaking, most companies violate almost all patent and copyright laws and terms left and right. They can never assume ownership of something simply because it is in a license file. Ownership is a legal issue, and thus can only be granted by the government. You cannot just assume copyright applies. File your paperwork, and if you didn't, claiming the copyright is a $500 fine for every copy, including digital copies.

Re:good

[lorenlal]

Hyperbole aside, I have to acknowledge the gripes you have. Yes, the GPL is a funny license when it comes down to it.

IANAL, but my understanding is that anything that Sun, and by acquisition Oracle, contributed to the MySQL code can be changed to non-free licenses for newer editions. Obviously you can't say "That release from two years ago is no longer freely available." Anything in the project that is GPL code needs to have the source freely (or at least easily) accessible. So, any community contributions (yes yes.. I know... Both of them) are still covered by the GPL if the authors chose to mark them as GPL code. If they did not state any licensing terms with their code, well then I believe it became subject to Sun's/Oracle's discretion.

To properly reply to the parent that you are criticizing, they do have a point in that if the code that has been released isn't changed, it is still GPL code. That should remain publicly available. Any changes they make from here on aren't necessarily... But depending on how they make use of the GPL code they might cause a violation of the GPL license, which could be actionable... But we'll just have to see how this progresses.

So, in the case of the community, Oracle is essentially choosing to no longer license their changes under the GPL. The only real surprise in all of this is that it took them this long to do exactly that. Of course it bothers the community because someone just took their truck from the sandbox, and let's face it, Oracle ain't exactly known for playing nice in said sandbox anyway.

Re:good

[Sun]

In theory, I think you are right (IANAL). In practice, however, the mere existence of MariaDB means that it would be close to impossible to prove any actual harm. Oracle can always claim that you are free to switch to MariaDB, and you will have a hard time proving that is difficult to do.

Shachar

Re: good

[Anonymous Coward]

What you've missed is that MySQL contributors have always been required to ass

Re: good

[Anonymous Coward]

(Bloody hell, it appears I've fat-fingered the post button... with no preview, looks like this "tablet" version of /. ain't all it's cracked up to be.)

What you've missed is that MySQL contributors have always been required to assign copyright over, so that the current owner of MySQL is able to retain this control. If you retain copyright over your contributions, yeah, they need your permission to de-GPL the whole shebang, but that doesn't apply here.

Re: good

[Zontar The Mindless]

So its nothing to get your panties in a twist over guys, you can decide to be a dumbass and trust old Monty again (seriously guys look at the MariaDB license again, old Monty has it set up so all the code belongs to him, no reason he can't sell it out from under you again) or you can go to one of the other SQL variants or hell, if you want you and some other devs can take the last GPL version of MySQL and fork it and make something better. Make it belong to the actual community so it can't be sold and get behind that like you did with Libre office, why not do that? But this is a tempest in a teapot, who cares, you have options galore.

Bingo. Give this man a cigar.

Re:good

[Forever Wondering]

I don't think the existence of MariaDB lets Oracle off the hook for a couple of reasons:

MariaDB doesn't change the fact that Oracle is reneging on its [implied] promises.

The harm is real. If a developer/company continues development on mysql (e.g. spends real money) continuing with mysql, based upon the assurances, vs. pulling the plug on all such devel activity immediately [when Oracle first acquired Sun].

In absence of the Oracle roadmap, the other company's choice might have been to spend that [wasted] capital on doing a Postgres port right away. Not only money wasted, but time as well, and business decisions about what markets to stay in/get out of. All of these could affect a company's competitiveness, market share, and profitability. Hence the harm.

If Oracle had said at time of acquisition that mysql was being closed [made no public promises to the contrary], there would be nothing to litigate about. Others are correct about being able to change licensing in general.

But, if Oracle had said that then [people were plenty steamed up], there would have been an immediate code fork [ala LibreOffice] or mass migration to Postgres [IIRC, MariaDB didn't exist then]. So, if Oracle had this latest action in mind all along [after the brouhaha dies down], then they seem truly duplicitous [and vulnerable in a court of law].

Re:good

[peppepz]

It's true that the GPL isn't particularly indicated for documentation, but the problem here is that the license they've chosen is much worse, it's non-free. You can't even distribute printed copies of the manpages without authorization from Oracle!

Re:good

[Lonewolf666]

In practice (and if you're minded to sue), you could actually switch to MariaDB and carefully document the "effort" in terms of costs. Then you have a monetary value.

Now IANAL too, and I don't know the chances of success in court. But if you need a number of dollars, there are ways to get it. It may even be not so small, if you need to do a rollout in a major company.

Re:good

[xelah]

It isn't really relevant here, but I'd think that issuing two exclusive licences to different people would probably count.

Re: good

[hairyfeet]

Thanks but it just irks me how so few of the so called "GPL advocates" actually understand jack shit when it comes to licenses.

Take old Monty, he has set up MariaDB to be EXACTLY the same as MySQL license wise, he STILL owns ALL contributions so he could just as easily sell it out from under the community just as he did with MySQL but as long as he pays lip service to the GPL? Then you will have a ton of guys here sing his praises.

And look at how few understand even how the GPL works, acting like this means they can "take teh codez away from us ZOMFG!" when IRL they can't do jack shit about the previous code that was released under GPL, the ONLY thing they can do is refuse to release FUTURE releases under GPL. You can take the last GPL version and do as you wish, modify it, fork it, hell build a business around it like old Monty did, nothing they can do or say to stop you.

Re: good

[sjames]

So? It'll just mean another name change and fork. It's not perfect, but it's not the end of the world either. MySQL is alive and well, it's just called MariaDB now.There is a product from Oracle called MySQL but it's just a shambling zombie that wants to eat money rather than brains.

Re:good

[deKernel]

Unless as part of the condition of submitting you are agreeing to assign your new/changes to the controlling party.

Re:good

[jbolden]

MySQL & Sun & Oracle kept the licensing clean. Any outsiders who contributed had to surrender copyright.

Re: good

[jbolden]

No it is tested in court and the answer is no. A license cannot be retroactively applied.

Re:good

[bws111]

If any of what you said was true (it isn't) or made sense (it doesn't) then nobody in their right mind would ever release anything open source.

No court is ever going to say that someone is required to perform some service (like release a new version of MySQL under GPL), when there is no benefit to them to doing so. Sorry, but one cannot bind themselves to slavery (which is basically what you are asking for) just by issuing a statement or 'promise'.

If someone is dumb enough to base their systems on a piece of software provided by someone else, with absolutely no guarantee (not vague statement) of future updates or support (you know, that whole THIS SOFTWARE IS AS-IS... thing at the start of the GPL) that is entirely their problem, not the person who wrote the software.

Re: good

[jbolden]

What do you mean "lip service". What built the entire mass of open operating systems was the LAMP stack starting in 1994: MySQL is the M in LAMP. From an open source GPL perspective Monty took commercial developers, charged them money to use a GPL product and used that money to fund GPL development. What's wrong with that?

Re:good

[jbolden]

There is nothing funny about the GPL here. MySQL required copyright for contributions. You didn't contribute under the GPL, you contributed by relinquishing your copyright.

Re:good

[bws111]

Your chances are exactly zero of success in court. Nobody cares what your costs are. The questions are going to be:

Let's see the contract you have with Oracle (don't have one, but I do have this license that clearly says it is provided as-is, with no warranty of any kind)

OK, well then how much did you pay Oracle for the software (zero).

Goodbye.

Re:good

[Sun]

That's why he talked about estoppel. Please tell me you've read the article before you so confidently posted here.

The relevant part of estoppel here is the one about public statements. If you make a public statement showing commitment, and someone relies on that commitment, you cannot go back. Despite the fact there is no actual contract, things are just as binding.

Suppose you place code on github, and publish in your blog that you released it as GPL, but never actually write a license file or give any other indication in the actual source that it's free software. Suppose I then modify it and distribute it (adding a GPL license). You cannot sue me for copyright violation. You made a public statement about the code, and I relied on it. That's as good as a contract.

Shachar

Re: good

[hairyfeet]

I'll be happy to tell ya what I mean by "Lip service". You ever hear the phrase "fool me once"? well old Monty has sold the DB out from under the community ONCE ALREADY and just because he was able to find a sucker the first time that didn't make him sign a do not compete does NOT mean it will be the same next time. Old Monty made a mint off the backs of the guys that worked on MySQL precisely BECAUSE it was FOSS, and you are gonna trust him a second time?

It is THIS, this right here, that causes me to label FOSS zealots as "FOSSies" and compare them to religious zealots because as long as you say the magic words they WILL NOT THINK, they will just rally around the flag. You want the M in LAMP? Then do the SMART thing, set up a non profit like the foundation that does Libre Office so that NOBODY can sell the code out from under you and do it THAT way. If you willingly sign your code over to old Monty after he has already screwed over the community once already? Then I'm sorry, you're an idiot that deserves whatever you get.

Re: good

[jbolden]

I don't agree with you that Monty screwed over the community. I think he made tremendous contributions and fought tough battles during critical years. I think he marshaled resources effectively. And if he got rich off that, good for him.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

Even the same version shouldn't be if the licensors don't want it to be. Who cares about the owner's freedoms so long as RMS's are satiated, right?

Putting words in people's mouths isn't very nice.

Re:good

[Forever Wondering]

No court is ever going to say that someone is required to perform some service (like release a new version of MySQL under GPL), when there is no benefit to them to doing so.

If they were under contract to do so, they would.

Sorry, but one cannot bind themselves to slavery (which is basically what you are asking for) just by issuing a statement or 'promise'.

Try doing a bit of [legal] reading/research:

Promissory estoppel is a contract law doctrine. It occurs when a party reasonably relies on the promise of another party, and because of the reliance is injured or damaged.

In the law of contracts, the doctrine that provides that if a party changes his or her position substantially either by acting or forbearing from acting in reliance upon a gratuitous promise, then that party can enforce the promise although the essential elements of a contract are not present.

Re: good

[hairyfeet]

He took other people's work, made them sign it over to him, and sold it out from under them...sorry, flag on the field for douchebaggery. The only person Monty cares about is Monty, or he wouldn't have screwed over the community in the first place.

As the saying goes "fool me once" and if he gets the community to do the work for him and then sells it out from under them again? Oh well, they deserve what they get.

Re: good

[jbolden]

I don't know of any code in MySQL that wasn't either from MySQL or designed around a particular support app. These victims who worked hard for Monty only to be sold out to Oracle don't exist. MySQL was always pretty clear that the commercial version existed to make profit on. Anyone signing the code over to Monty knew it was for MySQL to make money. These victims don't exist. Can you even name one programmer who claims to have been defrauded in this way who actually contributed to MySQL?

Re: good

[hairyfeet]

Dude are you REALLY gonna argue that old Monty was the ONLY ONE that worked on MySQL all those years? Really? Old Monty was more than happy to accept patches from other people...as long as he got the rights to them, and what did he do? He sold it out from under the community!

So if your argument is correct he might as well just make MariaDB proprietary, since after all the community doesn't do shit to improve it at all. But I bet if you go through the changelogs for MySQL before old Monty sold it you'll find plenty of names that are NOT Monty. And again, if you are THAt stupid? you deserve to be screwed, i have zero fucks to give about somebody who sees a guy fuck them over only to go right back, zero fucks.

Re: good

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude are you REALLY gonna argue that old Monty was the ONLY ONE that worked on MySQL all those years?

That doesn't in any way resemble what he's saying, idiot.

Re:good

[Anonymous Coward]

This just exposes the lie of the GPL...that forcing itself on future software is somehow necessary to protect present interests. Anything released under the GPL will always and forever be released under the GPL. Extending to modifications is overreach to suit an agenda.

It's nothing to do with "necessary". The GPL exists because some people didn't want their work to be used to make proprietary software, and they entirely have the right to want that, just as proprietary software authors have the right to want their work to be proprietary.

Re: good

[jbolden]

I don't know what you mean by Monty being the only one and trying to conflate him with MySQL inc. MySQL was a corporation with at some points over 100 employees. And no I didn't say only one, I said much the opposite. But if you exclude MySQL and people who had narrow interests there really weren't many other developers. MySQL wasn't proprietary because of how it was marketed. For GPL developers it was free once people wanted to take their GPL app proprietary they had to pay. The open source community wasn't harmed by the Oracle purchase.

Your entire claim is based on people being harmed. Name them.

Re:good

[OdinOdin_]

> (and more importantly any new versions of it)

and any old / existing version(s) for which they have full rights on because as you say they own it, so would be entitled to provide additional licensing options on existing code.

This is not the same thing as retracting/withdrawing the previously GPLed versions of the same. As I'm sure the GP knows this is not legally possible. The only thing they could in this regard is simply stop redistributing any form of it neither binary nor source of the older versions and then hope it disappears from the Internet, since they could not stop a 3rd party providing redistribution but can control what they themselves redistribute.

Re: good

[Anonymous Coward]

It so happens that I know many if not most of the principals involved in this saga, and I suspect that this has a lot do with why I do not go along with the famed Slashdot groupthink on this one.

MySQL is still free as in speech, and free as in beer. It is heaps better than it used to be, and it is heaps better than MariaDB.

There I said it. Let me say it again, in bold text: MySQL IS BETTER THAN MariaDB.

Since I choose not to don ideological blinders before assessing software, I've concluded that Oracle have handled their stewardship of MySQL amazingly well. The quality of the product has improved immensely and the pace of development outstrips anything we saw in the MySQL AB or Sun days.

Having worked some years for both of them, I've also come to the conclusion that Oracle are complete bastards whom I would never invite to the same party as any of my female relations... BUT they do not lie, cheat, or steal.

Whereas Monty acts like a very nice guy (and he is mostly a pretty nice guy), and says the right buzzwords to excite the fanbois, but when you examine what he actually says, it's all half-baked pablum. And it is nothing you can really depend on--Monty's plans can and do change on a whim. This was one of the big problems with MySQL back in the day--nobody could depend on what Monty (and thus MySQL AB) said, because the next day, he might be saying something else. Say what you like about Oracle, but when they sign a contract, they expect to follow it to the letter, and they do.

Posting anon because I work for blahblahblah but do not speak for blahblahblah etc etc ad nauseum meh.

Re: good

[Zontar The Mindless]

Old Monty made a mint off the backs of the guys that worked on MySQL...

hairyfeet, you should really not prattle on about matters you obviously know nothing about. It does not make you appear wise or intelligent.

Just so you know: Monty gave me the opportunity to go from living in a slum, mired in debt, to owning my own home in a nice part of Europe in just a couple of years.

But his house in Helsinki is much bigger and nicer than my place in Stockholm.

Oh, the unfairness of it all!

glad i am moving to mariaDB

[ghinckley68]

like oracle but come on Larry no need to be that greedy

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[ron_ivi]

Glad I moved to PostgreSQL.

(Nothing to do with Oracle screwing it up - I moved back around the 6.4 relase. IMHO Postgres was always better on Linux/Unix, and MySQL's popularity is really only due to it having a Windows installer first.)

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[samkass]

Glad I moved to PostgreSQL.

(Nothing to do with Oracle screwing it up - I moved back around the 6.4 relase. IMHO Postgres was always better on Linux/Unix, and MySQL's popularity is really only due to it having a Windows installer first.)

That's not at all why MySQL was popular. It was dead simple to get started on, you could dump/reload databases to text files trivially, and you could learn on a platform with minimal support for everything so there wasn't a stack of binders work of documentation. It was fast, free, had minimal complexity for a DB, and had a clear path from first tutorial to production.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[93 Escort Wagon]

He's gotta cover those mortgage payments for Lanai somehow...

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but that was a long time ago. MySQL had minimum complexity for a DB but it also had minimal performance in anything but simple lookups. (With those it was stupid fast.) To imply that is still sufficient reason to remain on MySQL is to vet your product using a type of user inertia to stifle movement from a now-lesser product to a perhaps better one. That is what Microsoft does to reduce defections from e.g., Office to Open Office.

I don't know why, but I can't get rid of the suspicion that if you kickstarted another billion to Monty all of this would go away...

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[rve]

Yes, but that was a long time ago. MySQL had minimum complexity for a DB but it also had minimal performance in anything but simple lookups. (With those it was stupid fast.) To imply that is still sufficient reason to remain on MySQL is to vet your product using a type of user inertia to stifle movement from a now-lesser product to a perhaps better one. That is what Microsoft does to reduce defections from e.g., Office to Open Office.

I don't know why, but I can't get rid of the suspicion that if you kickstarted another billion to Monty all of this would go away...

In my experience, oracle's enterprise edition database has minimal performance for anything but simple lookups too. All relational databases I have worked with slow down dramatically once you start moving too much business logic into your sql queries.

MySQL/isam sacrificed acid compliance for great performance on simple hardware, which turned out to be an acceptable tradeoff for a newly emerging workload. This, combined with the fact that it was backed by a company rather than a group of volunteers as with Posgresql made it take off.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[Anonymous Coward]

like oracle but come on Larry no need to be that greedy

No, it's not Larry being the greedy one this time. Much as it pains me to say it, you're pointing your finger in the wrong direction.

Monty is angry over the fact that he can no longer take the MySQL man pages, modify them so as to apply to MariaDB, and then redistribute them at little or no cost to himself with his product.

IOW, he wants someone else to bear the costs of producing his documentation. Note that MySQL documentation is and always has been written in-house, and since 2003 by a team of paid writers (most of whom were first hired in MySQL AB times), with outside contributions amounting to 1% or less.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[someones]

You obviously never used postgresql or you do some major fuckup that the optimizer wont do.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[laffer1]

Or maybe he has. PostgreSQL is slow for inserts. I feel like a broken record at this point, but it's true. If you use COPY it's fast. If you wrap a ton of inserts in a single transaction it is mediocre. If you try to use it with an ORM, you're SOL.

If you do a lot of hacks like force vacuums, use COPY and other craziness, you can get performance out of pg. Don't even try to run it on a hard drive. Anyone who says it's fast is using a lot of enterprise SSD and they don't notice how painfully slow it is writing out transactions, etc.

I might be stuck porting to PostgreSQL or MariaDB now as this MySQL licensing situation with Oracle is getting out of control. I've been highly resistant to change, but I think it might be time.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[sjames]

Really, Postgres had that too. The big reason way back when is that Postgres focused on correctness even for the corner cases first, then performance while MySQL went for fast, fast, fast and more or less good enough correctness. Many web based systems used MySQL because it was more or less correct enough for them (and the consequences when it wasn't were small or even non-existent). That made it a reasonable choice for the right class of application.

Later on, Postgres became fast while maintaining correctness.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[nabsltd]

Monty is angry over the fact that he can no longer take the MySQL man pages, modify them so as to apply to MariaDB, and then redistribute them at little or no cost to himself with his product.

Monty already has the last set of MySQL man pages that he would ever need, and can apply all changes to those to make them correct for the changes in MariaDB.

The only situation that the MySQL man pages might be needed is if there is a change made to MySQL by Oracle that would be beneficial to MariaDB. But, if that change isn't GPL, then it doesn't matter if the man page is GPL, as Monty would have to implement the feature without using the original code.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah.

Having been there, there were two things that made a significant difference:

(1) Install was dead simple. PostgreSQL was secure by default, MySQL was up and running and ready to use by default.

(2) MySQL posted a gazillion semi-faked benchmarks, giving the impression it was fast. (When I say "semi-faked", I refer to the fact that they carefully pared down the set of benchmarks for each database they compared to, showing only the benchmarks where MySQL did at least almost as good a job as whatever database they were comparing against.)

There are three more points that may have made some difference:
(3) MySQL was non-strict about inserts by default, truncating to turning them into often-reasonable data by default. This made it easier for people with little experience to get some kind of thing up and running, though it makes it way harder to get anything reliable.

(4) MySQL command line interface may be easier to learn.

(5) PostgreSQL tended to need a dump/restore for updates, MySQL didn't.

Nobody tended to look at company vs volunteers, as far as I could tell. There was buzz about the performance, but that was in large part due to their semi-fake benchmarks.

Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB

[Anonymous Coward]

It was dead simple to get started on

I had no clue about SQL at all when I first used Postgres, but the documentation made it trivial to get started.

you could dump/reload databases to text files trivially

Are you implying that pg_dump doesn't/didn't exist?

and you could learn on a platform with minimal support for everything so there wasn't a stack of binders work of documentation.

I honestly have no clue what you're trying to say here.

Sounds like a mistake.

[dgatwood]

They offer things under two licenses: GPL and commercial. IMO, it is far more likely that some build script broke and failed to replace the copyright notice on the GPLed export than that Oracle has decided to try to take the man pages proprietary.... :-)

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

With ORACLE you never know.
Guess the worst, expect 10 times as worse.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Even the webpage still says that it is GPL.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[rahvin112]

It's a tried and true practice of Commercial software to charge extra for documentation. I'm willing to bet this is completely intentional.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

I generally assume incompetence over malice, except when I'm dealing with Oracle.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

With Oracle, you can often safely assume both!

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly enough that applies to Microsoft, too.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

With Oracle you know.
Guess the worst, expect 10 times as worse, get 100 times as bad.

FTFY

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

They offer things under two licenses: GPL and commercial. IMO, it is far more likely that some build script broke and failed to replace the copyright notice on the GPLed export than that Oracle has decided to try to take the man pages proprietary.... :-)

A mistake you say?? How could it be? Didn't the great journalists at the MariaDB blog check and verify ... oh.... wait a minute.... wait just a minute....

Until something is actually verified, it is nothing more than FUD.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think. Of course, in that case they should immediatly release a correct licensed version and kill the test enginers.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Charliemopps]

Exactly, every time I'm talking to a VP at Oracle support (Every level 2 support tech is a VP at oracle) all I can picture in my head is them looking like Cobra Commander.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's also one of the major ways for open source and free software to make money.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[c0lo]

With ORACLE you never know.
Guess the worst, expect 10 times as worse.

Looking for the silver lining: using Oracle products, you'll always can delude yourself into thinking you'd contributed to the wellfare of the Lanai subjects of king Larry.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[virgnarus]

That bad of a lisp, eh?

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

You for 1000 times the cost.

Somebody has to finance Ellison's lairs.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[nryeng]

You're right. This is an unintentional change that will be reversed. http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=69512

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

They offer things under two licenses: GPL and commercial. IMO, it is far more likely that some build script broke and failed to replace the copyright notice on the GPLed export than that Oracle has decided to try to take the man pages proprietary.... :-)

Yes, that's the case: http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=69512

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's one of the things I love about Oracle, actually.
I even ended a call with "COOOOOOOBRRRAAAAAaaa!"

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except Oracle itself has voluminous amounts of relatively well-written and detailed documentation available for free.

Re:Sounds like a mistake.

[Anonymous Coward]

They offer things under two licenses: GPL and commercial. IMO, it is far more likely that some build script broke and failed to replace the copyright notice on the GPLed export than that Oracle has decided to try to take the man pages proprietary.... :-)

I've seen this type of mistake happen before. While I believe it was an honest mistake, when it was pointed out that the license was too restrictive the people started seeing money signs and refused to remove the restrictions for free. I never submitted another line of code. The project stalled as did the company, which was later purchased by Red Hat who did the right thing. Rest in peace, Cygnus Solutions. Thanks to you, I no longer believe in licensing mistakes.

This affects distributions

[Cassini2]

Most distributions include the documentation with any software packages distributed. Without a GPL or free software license on the documentation, the distributions must either:
(a) comply with the license,
(b) provide a third-party download (like Adobe with Flash), or
(c) stop including MySQL.
Given the existence of MariaDB, it might be simplest to stop including MySQL in the distribution.

Re:This affects distributions

[Anonymous Coward]

Most likely the choice will be:

(d) write free documentation

Debian does this quite often. See: Debian with GFDL licensed documentation.

Re: This affects distributions

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, because distros are using GPLed versions already. Can't apply a new license to that already distributed.

Re: This affects distributions

[Cassini2]

The distributions do periodically update to the latest versions of the software they distribute. Using 5.30 documentation on version 5.31 might work. However, that rapidly gets thin after a few years of updates.

Then again, this might be a quiet way for Oracle discontinue updates on MySQL, so that they can sell more copies of Oracle.

Re:This affects distributions

[Anonymous Coward]

(d) provide the old documentation, which didn't come with any such restrictions.

The Correct way to look at this situation, is that MySQL has died and is no longer being maintained by its owner. The last [GPLed] version was the last version.

Re:This affects distributions

[icebike]

Haven't most distros moved already to MariaDB?

Re: This affects distributions

[c-A-d]

And push more people towards PostgreSQL and other DBs.

Re:This affects distributions

[Culture20]

Not RHEL/CentOS, although RHEL7 will be based on Fedora19, which will use MariaDB instead of MySQL. Basing RHEL7 on Fedora19 is strange in itself; RedHat used to base RHEL on older versions of Fedora; I guess they feel the commercial world is ready for bleeding edge.

Re: This affects distributions

[jd2112]

I don't think there is enough overlap between Oracle and MySQL to generate enough sales to make it worth the Oracle reps time to answer the phone.

Re:This affects distributions

[arth1]

Or they needed to wait until there was a stable MATE, given how Gnome 3 still is rather unsuitable for server use, including remote desktops, VMs and heterogeneous environments.

Re: This affects distributions

[denmarkw00t]

You may not be aware, but Oracle costs a TON of money. It's always worth a rep's time, because they're getting paid massive amounts of money to tell you how to do a LIMIT, OFFSET in Oracle. Forcing people over to Oracle from MySQL, for those gullible enough to do it, will mean some extra chump change for Oracle while simultaneously driving off anyone smart enough to go with a truly open alternative. No skin off their backs - Oracle has one client who is a Big Bank, and that's probably enough business from licensing to bankroll all the phone support for all of their products until the end of time.

(sorry to my previous mod ups - you guys were funny and insightful - I'm sure others will mod appropriately - lol @ FirstPostgreSQL)

Re: This affects distributions

[jd2112]

You may not be aware, but Oracle costs a TON of money. It's always worth a rep's time, because they're getting paid massive amounts of money to tell you how to do a LIMIT, OFFSET in Oracle. Forcing people over to Oracle from MySQL, for those gullible enough to do it, will mean some extra chump change for Oracle while simultaneously driving off anyone smart enough to go with a truly open alternative. No skin off their backs - Oracle has one client who is a Big Bank, and that's probably enough business from licensing to bankroll all the phone support for all of their products until the end of time.

(sorry to my previous mod ups - you guys were funny and insightful - I'm sure others will mod appropriately - lol @ FirstPostgreSQL)

Actually that was my point. If you are using MySQL and you are forced to move to another database platform (other than for outgrowing MySQL) Oracle is probably the last one you would look at due to licensing cost. And you would probably look at Oracle in that case if you were already an Oracle shop. Even then it might be better to move to PortgeSQL or even MS-SQL.

Re:This affects distributions

[BrokenHalo]

Slackware 14.0 ships with MySQL 5.5.29. Not that I ever use MySQL, so FWIW...

Re: This affects distributions

[denmarkw00t]

I guess I was saying that, in regards to the time of the reps, it's always worth their time.

Re:This affects distributions

[shadowknot]

True indeed, however the current branch switched over to MariaDB back in March (changelog) So Slack 15 or 14.1, whichever comes next, will be shipped with MariaDB insted of MySQL.

Re:This affects distributions

[Culture20]

Well, the default in RHEL7 is going to be Gnome 3 Classic, not MATE.

Re:This affects distributions

[arth1]

Gnome 3 Classic doesn't exist in Fedora versions prior to Fedora 19 either, so the argument stands.

Re: This affects distributions

[jd2112]

I guess I was saying that, in regards to the time of the reps, it's always worth their time.

Call up an Oracle rep (assuming you are not already an Oracle customer) asking for a quote on a 5 user base Oracle database license and see how long it takes him to get back to you.

Re:This affects distributions

[hobarrera]

Plenty of distributions are already ahead of you and have moved over to MariaDB anyway.

Re: This affects distributions

[Anonymous Coward]

While I think that PostgreSQL is great, it isn't that logical switching an existing application to PostgreSQL. You can use MariaDB without changing anything.

Re:This affects distributions

[Errol backfiring]

Yup. They could fork the old documentation and add corrections themselves. Mind you, that is a lot of work. I can imagine that the community favours switching to MariaDB instead.

Re:This affects distributions

[Culture20]

And I just thought of a complication: RHEL is known for backporting security fixes to older versions, but soon those security fixes may not be compatible license-wise. So versions of RHEL that are still in use (5,6) will need to switch to MariaDB for security reasons, which will be hairy for support.

Re: This affects distributions

[jbolden]

Why would you be forced to move away from MySQL without either:

a) having an applications specific / database specific reason
a) outgrowing it

Re:This affects distributions

[BrokenHalo]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that, although I am running -current. But obviously slackpkg update wouldn't have picked up on the new name.

Re:Frist post

[Tablizer]

Dontcha mean FirstPostgre?

Dual licensing

[Alex Belits]

And this kis why dual licensing is sucha bad idea -- enemies of the project have an incentive to buy the primary developer and only continue development under the worst of the licenses.

Re:Dual licensing

[sidthegeek]

If a threatening company buys out the main devs for a project. the community can always maintain and actively develop a fork under the GPL or other free software license. It worked for LibreOffice.

Re:Dual licensing

[chriscappuccio]

Really? Well, it was a good idea for Monty because he had a product worth buying when Sun paid him out.

Re:Dual licensing

[Anonymous Coward]

But if product is initially dual-licensed, there is a possibility for keeping the continuity of development while gradually reducing open version into being completely unusable. If there was only one license, it would be possible to keep closed licensing away by not requiring copyright assignment (like Linux) or assigning copyright to a trusted entity that exists for purpose of maintaining free software (like GNU). With one commercial entity holding copyright and already providing dual licensing, it's possible to make the product de-facto proprietary while still benefiting from work done by contributors, and to keep the open version just viable enough to hinder the forks.

Is this legal?

[Black Parrot]

Wouldn't they need the approval of everyone who contributed to the GPL'd version in order to do this?

Re:Is this legal?

[Hewligan]

No, MySQL has always required copyright assignment for stuff to be included.

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

MySQL is dual-licensed. If you contribute code/fixes to the official branch, you agree to dual-license it. Otherwise, it's unofficial and you're forking it (see: MariaDB)

Re:Is this legal?

[watermark]

Nope, a few projects have done this. I can think of ExtJS, Boxee, pChart, and I'm sure tons more.

Apparently, assuming you were the original author of the software, you can switch to any license you want. You just can't retroactively apply it to version past. IMHO, it does seem like stealing from the people that gave their time for free to contribute to the software.

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

MySQL is dual-licensed. If you contribute code/fixes to the official branch, you agree to dual-license it. Otherwise, it's unofficial and you're forking it (see: MariaDB)

This isn't relevant, but another poster got it right. The thing that matters is who owns the copyright, and that's only Oracle due to contributors to MySQL agreeing to reassign the copyright all along.

Re:Is this legal?

[chriscappuccio]

The answer is "Yes" and the long answer is that they already gave the permission or MySQL AB/Sun/Oracle wouldn't have accepted the contribution.

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you're a fucktard know nothing. Just another Linux fanboi who doesn't understand what he's signed on for the first place.
 
You really need to read more and post less. Maybe you'd learn something.

Re:Is this legal?

[mlwmohawk]

That works is the authors retain their copyright. "Contributors" to TheirSQL assign copyrights of contributions to, now, Oracle, then Sun, and before that MySQL AB.

Re:Is this legal?

[osu-neko]

IMHO, it does seem like stealing from the people that gave their time for free to contribute to the software.

You cannot steal what already belongs to you. Even if it was a gift.

Re:Is this legal?

[osu-neko]

/eyeroll

You can do whatever you want with your own software. Only other people require a license, and are bound by the terms of it. License terms do not apply to the copyright owner -- that doesn't even make any sense.

Re:Is this legal?

[cbiltcliffe]

GP was answering the question in the body, not the question in the subject line.
"Yes" it's legal.
"No" they wouldn't need approval of everybody who contributed to the GPL version.

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

They own the copyright, so they can change the license for new versions. They can't however, change the license to the versions already released or any forks from those.

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

But that "no" answer is incorrect. They DO need approval, but they've already gotten approval.

Re:Is this legal?

[stoborrobots]

"No" they wouldn't need approval of everybody who contributed to the GPL version.

I agree with you, but I think of it as "Yes, they need the approval of everybody who contributed to the GPL version, so they got that approval in advance in the form of a copyright assignment. Because the contributors assigned all their copyright rights to the owners of MySQL, the owners can make this change without needing any further permission from the contributors."

Re:Is this legal?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is only true because Oracle/et-el required any contribution to have copyright assigned to them. The reason for this is so that they could dual license without any issue.

It is only legal because Oracle effectively remains the only copyright holder due to agreements on every thing they committed which wasn't authored by them being agreed to assign all rights as copyright holder to Oracle.

Re:Is this legal?

[cbiltcliffe]

Rereading what I wrote, you're right. The way I was thinking isn't consistent with what I wrote, though.

I was actually thinking:
"No, they wouldn't need to get specific permission for this specific change from everyone who contributed to the GPL version, as they got blanket permission with the copyright assignment."

Which, of course, is pretty much exactly what you said.....

Just use Postgres

[SplashMyBandit]

Just use Postgres - and get on with whatever it is you have to do :)

Re:Just use Postgres

[Anonymous Coward]

I do agree, but when you have existing apps tied to mysql its not a trivial operation.

Re:Just use Postgres

[sk999]

Years ago I evaluated PostgreSQL and MySQL for a project and decided to go with PostgreSQL. One reason was that it seemed more solid, which was more important than speed. The other was the funky way that MySQL was being developed - by a single, for-profit company - even though it was formally GPL licensed. Yes, MySQL would probably have worked fine, but the current issues with forking and all that mean that I would not trust it today. The community behind the project is more important than whatever license you choose to paste into the source and documentation.

Re:Just use Postgres

[Anonymous Coward]

One very good thing about this Oracle belligerence is that some fraction of MySQL users, at least those that don't just slouch into MariaDB, will adopt PostgreSQL. It is good software that deserves more market than it has at the moment.

Re:Just use Postgres

[Errol backfiring]

Tried it. Didn't work. Because I rely on iterative development, I use "make-it-work" statements a lot and have one master SQL script that I can use to both create a new database or upgrade an existing one (see Evolving A Database With MySQL). This requires a lot of "IF NOT EXISTS" clauses or "ON CONFLICT" clauses. MySQL features quite a few of them, and I could not find most of them in Postgres. Even the SQL standard MERGE command is not supported.

Also, with the zillion ways of logging in to a database, I had to follow a few "just type this and it will work" manuals on the internet to be able to log in into my own local sandbox database. I still don't know how I could ever configure Postgres to do authorization and I fought myself through a large part of the manual. It's just too complex and abstract.

Re:Just use Postgres

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-DBA Java programmer type here; just to provide some counter balance, I had no problems moving to PostgreSQL after having experience with Oracle and SQL Server. I did the install and all the configuration, no big deal. I have plenty of scripts which create a table only if it does not exist (using pgplsql; Python and Java are also potential in-database scripting languages).

So, what if we wrote those pages?

[WillAffleckUW]

You can't steal my copyright or that of my friends who wrote them.

Our copyright holds true.

No matter how many islands you own in Hawaii.

Re:So, what if we wrote those pages?

[chriscappuccio]

So, what if you wrote them? Then you had to provide a copyright assignment to MySQL AB/Sun/Oracle and you already gave them control over copy rights.

Re:So, what if we wrote those pages?

[viperidaenz]

or not matter how many times you agreed to forfeit your copyright? dumbass.

Re:So, what if we wrote those pages?

[Anonymous Coward]

But you didn't write them. A team of writers employed by MySQL AB/Sun/Oracle did.

Wow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wont be long now until mysql isn't useable for the unwashed masses.

GGPL

[watermark]

LPGL, lessor GPL, is offered. Perhaps a GGPL, greater GPL, should also be written up as a guarantee that it will never be closed.

Re:GGPL

[chriscappuccio]

If Monty wanted to license it as GPL-only, that would have had the same effect. Instead he chose a dual license explicitly so that he could sell the project and make money. It's much harder to sell GPL-only code in this context, you see.

Re:GGPL

[msauve]

Isn't that simply called a fork?

Re:GGPL

[Kalriath]

It doesn't matter how strict the GPL conditions are, they have no effect on the copyright owner, who is not bound by it.

Re:GGPL

[jbolden]

The GPL relies on copyright law. The open source community can't create its own legal structures, it can use pre-existing legal structures for its own purposes.

There is no concept corresponding to what you are looking for in copyright law.

No secret where this is going

[AmericanBlarney]

I think Oracle has been pretty clear the whole way that they are trying to slowly kill off MySQL and drive users towards their more enterprise grade (read: grossly overpriced) product. They've jacked up the license fees substantially a couple times and pretty much every step of the way signaled that they're not really interested in supporting an open source DB, so I'm actually not even sure why this is newsworthy. I actually find a number of features of Oracle's DB offering fairly interesting, but wholly unnecessary for most web applications, so I expect everyone will move on to MariaDB and PostgreSQL. Nice of Oracle to provide a little window for everyone to switch, not that it was their intention.

Re:No secret where this is going

[meerling]

It's kind of like the people in the lifeboats that can't stop watching the captain of a sinking ship as he continues to cut more holes in the hull to "let the water out".

Re:No secret where this is going

[Zontar The Mindless]

Yeah, that totally makes sense out of why Oracle keep hiring more MySQL devs and putting out new MySQL releases like those MySQL 5.7 previews or that MySQL Cluster 7.3 that had a GA release just yesterday.

Thanks for clearing that up!

They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bruce Perens]

Let's look at what Oracle is doing. I'll start the list of moves that appear to be intended to alienate the community around the very software they're promoting and cause the Open Source community to create viable forks that end up absconding with the product and its market. You guys contribute additional examples...

• Oracle v. Google regarding Java and the premise that APIs are copyrightable.
• Apache OpenOffice v. LibreOffice (which has a full-time negative publicity generator in Rob Weir).
• MySQL v. MariaDB.

IBM isn't known for dumb moves, but partnering with Oracle on this sure is one.

Bruce

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't acquiring MySQL probably intended to eliminate a large portion of the competition anyway? Larry Ellison long since has lent his support to the government moving in the direction of being a bigger Big Brother. He was for such things as the National ID most because he wanted the contract to provide and service commercial databases for the job. Microsoft isn't the only embrace and extend corporate headache. Alienation of the community towards formerly Sun created and/or supported OSS, Free, and/or free software probably suits his purpose in his mind. Where it is possible and suitable, someone should stick a fork in it.

Larry Ellison appear to anyone as a supporter of free or Free?

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bob The Cowboy]

What continuously baffles me is that they haven't managed to screw up VirtualBox yet (that I know of, I could be misinformed). Is the project just below the radar?

Bill

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Phroggy]

Wasn't acquiring MySQL probably intended to eliminate a large portion of the competition anyway?

If I remember correctly, Sun acquired MySQL prior to being acquired by Oracle, and Oracle's reasons for buying Sun had nothing to do with MySQL. Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken!

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Anonymous Coward]

What continuously baffles me is that they haven't managed to screw up VirtualBox yet (that I know of, I could be misinformed). Is the project just below the radar?

Bill

No, it's just a kind of software that enables proprietary software and Windows to be used where it wouldn't otherwise.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Anonymous Coward]

"In an effort to further perturb the free software market which has been threatening its middleware, application server and database markets recently, the management in Oracle has come up with the masterly stroke of buying Sun Microsystems, and with it a chief competitor, MySQL.

Oracle had already announced their intention to undermine MySQL a few years ago when they bought InnoDB, the ACID database engine used by MySQL, just 18 months before their licensing agreement with the Swedes was due to expire. If you donâ(TM)t understand why a licensing agreement was needed, you need to think about what licence MySQL was distributing InnoDB under when selling commercial MySQL licences."

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read that, for the last twenty years or so, Oracle's stock has returned on average 20% per year. In light of what that return can do to help your retirement picture, are a few crushed souls really that important?

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bruce Perens]

I graphed them next to NASDAQ as a whole for 20 years, and the graphs were very similar. Check it out for yourself, and consider the implications.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bruce Perens]

I think it was the general perception that Oracle got MySQL for free, as part of the overall Sun purchase.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Anonymous Coward]

Rob Weir does a lot of good work along with the Apache Openoffice team.
I'm sick of people making negative comments about AOO and its team when they're doing great work by releasing an office suite that isn't constrained by a viral license.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtualbox can't be compiled with Free tools any more... so they've managed to screw that one up too. The BIOS parts of virtualbox now require the watcom compiler so you're no longer able to modify, improve, recompile etc the BIOS parts within the free software ecosystem... you have to hope that what oracle is giving you as a the compiled (or assembler version) of the bios really corresponds to the source code and you have no way of making improvements to it... Being able to actually use the preferred form of modification to make improvements? What a quaint idea!

https://www.virtualbox.org/changeset/38699/vbox

http://bugs.debian.org/691148

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[CAIMLAS]

But they have messed up VirtualBox: 4.0 was basically 'out the door' when Oracle bought them (it came out something like a month or two later, a rushed release IIRC), and VirtualBox hasn't seen any marked improvements since. It's basically in a 'maintenance' freeze, from what I can see, and long-run bugs which have been around for quite a while are still there. What's more, more seem to be getting introduced (more instability lately, I think).

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[adolf]

IBM isn't known for dumb moves

Your memory of IBM differs from my own.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bruce Perens]

Your memory of IBM differs from my own.

I can't say I've had that much to do with them. HP, on the other hand, I could rant about for a while...

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[nbritton]

IBM isn't known for dumb moves, but partnering with Oracle on this sure is one.

• IBM Personal Computer
  Lotus Notes
  Not buying Sun Microsystems

I can go on...

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[jbolden]

Bruce I'm not following how IBM is partnering with Oracle on the MySQL deal. That line isn't clear.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bruce Perens]

IBM is most visible around Apache OpenOffice. What they are doing around MySQL v. MariaDB is tacit support through inaction. They didn't turn to supporting MariaDB or another MySQL version when Oracle de-supported MySQL on IBM platforms. They did something similar during Oracle v. Google - they chose just that time to abandon the Harmony project and commit to Oracle's JDK.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[jbolden]

As far as I understand it IBM's work with Open Office is mainly retiring their old OO fork Lotus Symphony. They want stagnant and solid consulting support to offload this line of business i.e. to offload Symphony. I wouldn't read into this any sort of non Lotus Symphony specific IBM preference.

As for not supporting it I'm still not quite following. For example when I go to the DB2 database comparison page they list plusses and minus of Maria vs. MySQL: for example Maria having graph indexes and function based indexes; along with disadvantages like MySQL's better backup functionality. How is that not being supportive? They are treating as a competitor with respect? What is IBM not doing that you think they should be doing?

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[Bruce Perens]

What was the problem with unloading Symphony on consulting support based upon LibreOffice? Given that this is a business they want to be rid of, I would expect they would not need to bolt proprietary stuff on to it any longer.

Regarding MariaDB support, I think you're correct that they're treating it as a competitor. This wasn't really the case for MySQL. IBM provided a supported version of MySQL.

Re:They're making friends like nobody's business!

[jbolden]

What was the problem with unloading Symphony on consulting support based upon LibreOffice?

I think 3 things:

1) Libre Office had forked further away from the OO 1/2 codebase for Symphony. So it would cost more to merge. The fact that OO is stagnant relative to LO is good for the Symphony merger project.

2) Libre Office was a community project. So IBM couldn't just get Oracle's OK to merge in a few features and be done with it. They would have to negotiate with tons of open source developers that had no particular reason to help IBM offload Symphony. I think there was a real meaningful possibility some of the changes IBM needed to be able to wash their hands of Symphony might have been rejected because they were seen (possibly quite rightly) as making LO worse. I don't see why the Symphony group would want to take that risk.

3) There is no consulting arm of Libre Office. IBM 3 years from now can't say "don't call us talk to Libre Office" they can say "don't call us talk to Oracle". If you are the sort of company that picked Symphony because it was IBM's brand of Open Office, and wanted to know you could buy support, you are going to be very happy being able to buy support from Oracle. That kind of company is likely too conservative to be comfortable buying support from ultra small company X.

____

Regarding MariaDB support, I think you're correct that they're treating it as a competitor. This wasn't really the case for MySQL. IBM provided a supported version of MySQL.

True but Oracle is there #1 competitor for DB2 followed by SQLServer. With MariaDB being close to MySQL and owned by Oracle I can't see any reason for IBM to treat it as friendly. I don't think this is hostility towards Open Source in anyway. Postgres Plus Advanced Server (PPAS) is being actively developed by IBM and officially supported. 15 years ago MySQL was part of the LAMP stack for applications that were never going to land IBM server contracts run by a small company and so IBM likely saw it as a way to sell consulting services.

I'd take it as a complement.

____

Anyway thank you for clarifying what you meant.

Don't hand over copyright

[nmoore]

This is why you shouldn't work on free software that requires you to hand over your copyright. This includes GNU software as well. Of course the FSF would be ideologically opposed to selling their copyrights to a proprietary software company, but what happens if one day donations dry up and they go bankrupt? Then the purchasers of the assets would be perfectly entitled to relicense your code however they want. Even if a bankrupt FSF tried to sell their assets to free-software-friendly companies, the court would probably block that if a proprietary software company made a higher offer. Furthermore, in some jurisdictions, the bankruptcy trustee, administrator, or court can terminate existing licenses—meaning that users couldn't even use an older version of the software, since they would no longer have a license to do so.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[Eravnrekaree]

You can always fork GPL code, the GPL license is not revocable by anyone.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[BrokenHalo]

This is why you shouldn't work on free software that requires you to hand over your copyright. This includes GNU software as well.

Even where code remains GPL, you have to be a bit careful about selling code. A case in point was Michael Sweet's selling the source for CUPS to Apple. Sure it's still GPL, but the exceptions to link against Apple software have (in some cases) set the clock back for users of Linux and other Unices.

I had always thought CUPS stood for Common Unix Printing System. I was wrong. Apparently it doesn't stand for anything any more. There was a time when if any printer you bought worked from a Mac, you would be able to use it on any other Unix box, and vice versa. I found out the hard way a few years back when I bought a Fuji/Xerox laser printer that that assumption is no longer the case. After fruitless searches through forums, I ended up having to manually edit the PPD file to get the damn thing working.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Edit the PPD? Geez buddy, if you were using slack you would have just done that first and gone back to work.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[nmoore]

Unless a bankruptcy court or the receiver can terminate the license (as a contract entered into by a non-bankrupt entity). Apparently this is an issue in Germany at least; there have been some attempts to make an exception for open source licenses, but I don't believe those have been successful yet.

As I understand it (I am not a lawyer), under US bankruptcy law the same holds: IP licenses are typically "executory contracts" (there are continuing obligations on both sides) and can be either assumed or rejected (terminated) by the trustee with court approval. A licensee would be able to sue for monetary damages, but not to continue the license. It might be possible to argue that a particular free software license doesn't meet the criteria to be an executory contract, but I have no idea how likely it would be for a court to accept such an argument.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[Todd Knarr]

I'd argue that a license like the GPL or BSD license can't be executory contracts because there is no ongoing obligation on the licensor's part. The only obligation is on the licensee's part, to continue to comply with the terms of the license grant. The bankrupt party can cease offering the license, but as their obligations have been completely fulfilled already the license shouldn't be eligible for cancellation.

The ability to cancel contracts in bankruptcy is intended to deal with things like a bankrupt party's contract with the cleaning service for a building.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[nmoore]

It appears I was wrong, anyway, with regards to US law. IP licensees are specifically allowed to retain their rights to the IP even if the contract is rejected: 11 USC 365(n). It may still be a problem in other jurisdictions.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[jbolden]

the purchasers of the assets would be perfectly entitled to relicense your code however they want.

Not quite: the purchasers of the assets would be perfectly entitled to relicense their code however they want. The GPL would still apply to all the old code. They would have to make substantial contributions so a to effectively be creating a proprietary fork of GPLed code.

Furthermore, in some jurisdictions, the bankruptcy trustee, administrator, or court can terminate existing licenses—meaning that users couldn't even use an older version of the software, since they would no longer have a license to do so.

The trustee has the authority to do what the original copyright holder could do. The GPL can only be terminated under specific conditions. Those conditions wouldn't be met...

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[jbolden]

Any copyright or license can be terminated by court approval in the USA. Oracle's rights to Oracle database could be terminated by a court. So that doesn't mean anything in particular.

In particular the article is kinda BS. The problem with an open source license from the perspective of the article is that licenses included clause to relicense.

A has copyright on X
A licenses B to license X
B licenses X to C
A goes bankrupt

Why does C lose their license?

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[jbolden]

That sounds to me like Fuji/Xerox not supporting CUPS. If there was a PPD that worked it should have been on their website.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[Todd Knarr]

I'd think it'd already have been dealt with. Think about an author going bankrupt, and as part of the proceedings trying to cancel all the copyright licenses given to publishers for all the books sold over a 2-decade career. Or a musical group going bankrupt and breaking up, and cancelling the copyright licenses given to the labels for all the records that'd been released. That'd just be too big a mess to allow.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[BrokenHalo]

The point is, for a printer to work on a Mac, it pretty much has to work with CUPS. It's just that now Apple owns CUPS, it isn't as transparent as it used to be. In this case, the PPD was bundled up in the Fuji/Xerox package for Mac, and it didn't work out of the box when just copied to /etc/cups/ppd on my Slackware machine.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[jbolden]

I understand. But I'm unclear how that is Apple's fault and not Fujo/Xerox's fault.

Re:Don't hand over copyright

[BrokenHalo]

I wasn't saying it was anyone's "fault" as such, more that the former Common Unix Printing System isn't really common any more, as its implementation has fragmented since Apple bought the code (and also, incidentally, hired its author - though one might have been a condition of the other). I agree that it should have been a simple matter for Fuji/Xerox to distribute a driver to work on Linux boxes, particularly since I was able to kludge the Mac version with just a few hours spent on research.

User trust violation

[tepples]

But it is possible for the copyright owner to commit a user trust violation by providing new versions of a work only under much harsher terms.

Re:User trust violation

[fustakrakich]

user trust

Who are we talking about here?

...

Oh... ha, very funny

Re:User trust violation

[rmdashrf]

What else would you have expected? It's Oracle. They've done the same with Solaris and OpenOffice. Now it's MySQL's turn.

Re:User trust violation

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not really a thing because only a naive idiot trusts a for-profit corporation or a not-for-profit that allows corporate sponsor/membership to act in the interests of the user before their own.

Re:User trust violation

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if the user was force upgraded or there was an agreement that future updates would be GPL. Neither of which is true.

Its *shitty*, but its not illegal.

Re:User trust violation

[davydagger]

and just like OpenOffice became libre office, mysql became MariaDB.

Everyone saw the writing on the wall and switched to MariaDB a few months ago. In for a repeat show?

This is the great thing about free software, once its free, you have a hard time closing it back up. Someone just forks the last free version and keeps going, and you get ignored unless you can contribute something the Free versions don't, which is unlikely.

Re:User trust violation

[M1FCJ]

And how different was MySQL AG with its dual-licence?
People must understand that MySQL was never free, you always had to pay stupid amount of money to use it with your business. If you weren't careful what the dual-licence restrictions meant, you could get into serious problems with lawyers.

Saying that, I am not sure if MySQL AG ever sued anyone for violation of the dual-licence clauses but I would not be surprised if more than once lawyers letters were exchanged, followed by some amount of cash.

Re:User trust violation

[jbolden]

Yes they sued people all the time who violated the GPL. In fact they were the ones who proved definitely that the GPL was enforceable in court. They sought and got substantial damages, I believe NuSphere was the first company that they hammered on this.

In any case there was never anything unusual about MySQL's free version. It was GPL software and if you wanted to use it you had to follow GPL rules. Or you could do whatever you wanted and pay for a license that was far less than an Oracle or DB2 license.

Re:User trust violation

[nabsltd]

Everyone saw the writing on the wall and switched to MariaDB a few months ago. In for a repeat show?

What do you mean "repeat show"? Nobody is going to switch from MariaDB because of this.

TFA is a MariaDB blog, but it concerns the MySQL documentation/license as published by Oracle, not the MariaDB docs/license. So, this is just more "writing on the wall", but now it's in bold text.

Re:User trust violation

[Hatta]

So when is VirtualBox going to get the same treatment, and who is going to fork it when it happens?

Re:User trust violation

[petermgreen]

There is Mysql documentation that claims that the GPL applies not only to their server software and their client access libraries but to their wire protocol such that even if you clean room reimplemented the client access libraries (which I belive someone eventually did) those reimplemented client access libraries would still be bound by the GPL.

I don't know if they ever tried to enforce that though.

Re:User trust violation

[jbolden]

My guess is they would lose. That sounds like trying to assert a patent as part of a copyright and I think the courts would see it that way as well and not look friendly on trying to bypass the patent mechanism.

Great community management there!

[gman003]

Seriously, this is just about perfect proof that Oracle isn't even paying attention to the MySQL community. If they were paying even the smallest iota of attention, they would have realized that changing the license terms on *anything* would be a big deal to the users, who are already a bit hesitant. At the very least, they would have messaged it better - told everyone up-front what they were doing, and *why*. Hell, maybe they actually have a good reason.

But now, they've lost spin control on their own action, to their #1 competitor. And the saddest part is, Oracle probably doesn't even care.

Not everyone can

[tepples]

Just use Postgres

Provided both your web host and the web applications you're running support PostgreSQL. Not everybody has the money to move up to a VPS and the time to rewrite all of a large web application's queries for PostgreSQL on a whim.

Re:Not everyone can

[tepples]

It's likely to rise above $10 per month as more web site operators move up from shared web hosting to a VPS that has its own (increasingly scarce) IPv4 address.

Assigned

[tepples]

You can't steal my copyright or that of my friends who wrote them.

Ellison can't steal it, but if this comment is to be trusted, you already signed it away.

Software foundations

[tepples]

Perhaps a GGPL, greater GPL, should also be written up as a guarantee that it will never be closed.

That's called donating copyright in a program to a not-for-profit foundation that has the free software paradigm written into its charter. Examples of such foundations include Free Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and KDE Free Qt Foundation.

Re:Software foundations

[ron_ivi]

That's called donating copyright in a program to a not-for-profit foundation that has the free software paradigm written into its charter.

That's still weak.

A non-profit's charter can evolve. Consider if the FSF merges with a different organization with a different charter; like the often more corporate-friendly Open Source Initiative.

Would be nice if such a guarantee could be written into the license itself.

Re:Software foundations

[tepples]

Consider if the FSF merges with a different organization with a different charter; like the often more corporate-friendly Open Source Initiative.

I don't see how a merger between FSF and OSI would pose a problem. The Open Source Definition published by Open Source Initiative is worded nearly identically to the Debian Free Software Guidelines on which it was based, and each of the OSD's conditions maps to one of the FSF's four freedoms.

Would be nice if such a guarantee could be written into the license itself.

I agree. But given how some countries appear not to recognize a dedication of a work to the public domain as irrevocable, charters are the best we have.

Re:Software foundations

[melikamp]

I don't know where OSI would stand on this merger, but Richard Stallman appears to be categorically opposed to the movement, as he thinks it is based on wrong values, among other things.

Re:Frist post

[binarylarry]

Narn, Thrince Post.

1 word

[smash]

postgresql

Re:User trust WHOOSH

[Anonymous Coward]

---> Joke

    o
   /|\     <- You
   / \

Whoosh!

On a related note, why does Giorgio Tsoukalos have such wild and crazy hair?!

Re:User trust WHOOSH

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

The answer is still aliens.

<3

Re:Just use MariaDB ( or Postgres )

[darkonc]

MariaDB is plugin-compatible with MySQL, and remains GPL licensed.

It may be that this license change is just a build oops, or it may be that Oracle is breaking it's agreement with the EU to keep mysql stable, supported and free. In any case, this does strengthen the case for MariaDB for those organizations are still on the fence about switching over.

oh hey

[Anonymous Coward]

looks like I aint using mysql anymore

Debian, wake up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian some time ago talked about switching to MariaDB. Then, the thread on their list stopped all activities without an apparent reasons. Now several distros (including RHEL, slackware, OpenSUSE and Arch) switched to MariaDB. But Debian still has MySQL.

Now there is a problem with man pages freedom. They should move those pages into the nonfree repository. They must comply their Social Contract.

Is this legal?

[brickmack]

I was always under the impression that, once licenced under the GPL, any later versions or forks of it would have to be GPL as well?

Have we not seen the writing on the wall?

[mlwmohawk]

PostgreSQL

Everyone knows its better and more free. The MySQL lineage needs to die.

Did anything change? Sounds like typical legal

[bussdriver]

Legal speak for a generic copyrite disclaimer which references a general agreement to me. What is the big deal? Sure it could say GPL, but this seems like a lawyer pleasing way to say "go read the related agreement" to me. The agreement can still be GPL but now the files just say you are restricted to the agreement.

GPL restricts use and copyrite is what gives GPL power.

NOTE: I purposely spell it copyrite.

Re:Did anything change? Sounds like typical legal

[Anonymous Coward]

NOTE: I purposely spell it copyrite.

That's the new DRM in action, eh?

Re: User trust WHOOSH

[Anonymous Coward]

Ancient alien theorists believe .

First the American's Cup, now this

[Anonymous Coward]

Soon the manpages will be required to be constructed of carbon fiber, with two hulls of 72' length, a 130' spar and quite impossible to steer.
The Touch of Larry is everywhere.

Enough already!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been kicking this one back and forth for a decade or more! If you knuckleheads would have used BSD licensed PostgreSQL from the git-go instead of MySQL's crazy now-you-see-me-now-you-don't license you would have freed up so much time and intellectual horsepower that you'd have your fucking flying cars by now.

Slashdot. It's like herding cats, except cats are cleaner.

Re:Enough already!

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of MySQL's crazy now-you-see-me-now-you-don't license you would have freed up so much time and intellectual horsepower that you'd have your fucking flying cars by now.

The BSD lisence doesn't make it any better, now does it. The GPL version (the versions that were released) will always be GPLed, so what's the problem? MariaDB will continue with the GPL lisence and Oracle can shove the commercial lisenced one up where the sun don't shine (hehehe, i just realised this "pun" as i was proof reading). This could've happened to PostgreSQL just as easily as with MySQL, even easier, since oracle and the companies before that, would've not have been required to get the copyright from the contributors.

I'm not saying that PostGre is a bad choice. I would use it, if i had a need for a database, especially since in the couple of years it has gained some nice features, but i wouldn't use it because it's BSD.

MariaDB

[davydagger]

I already switched to MariaDB, along with Red Hat, Arch Linux, and most everyone else.

Exactly what happened to open office. We got a working fork, that is what everyone is going to use.

I sez

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Fork you, Oracle.

Re:Just use MariaDB ( or Postgres )

[Anonymous Coward]

MariaDB is plugin-compatible with MySQL, and remains GPL licensed.

And all of its new code (i.e. not MySQL) is owned by the same dick that cashed out on MySQL. It's history repeating, but go ahead and use MariaDB until it's sold and forked again so that Monty--that genius bastard--can double dip, then you can switch to the next fork.

Or switch to the database you should have been using all along. Postgres is still there and just as better than My/MariaDB is it ever was.

Copyright law....

[Anonymous Coward]

Oracle needs to remember that once something has been deemed part of the public domain, it cannot be copyrighted. It doesn't matter if they just change a few things in a license file, it already existed in public domain and claiming edit to reflect codes changes as new is not true. In the case of documentation, this is not a work of authorship as defined as a new and creative work. Instead it is simply a set of factual statements of how something functions, which is not a copyrightable. Essentially no documentation on how something functions is actually copyrightable since it never leaves a statement or series of facts. If they provide code examples that fully implement functionality that exists beyond the functionality of the original code then possibly they may be able to claim authorship. I remind Oracle of range check which failed to hold up in court.....

The License to the General Public Licence-License

[dgharmon]

"GPL isn't a documentation license."

`This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License' link

"The GPL itself isn't licensed under the GPL"

insert brain-fart ...

Have the guts, don't be sneaky

[monzie]

Dear Oracle,
Have the guts and make your stand.
It's better to come out clean and say "hey we're a proprietary software company - our offerings wlll be closed-source/ as-closed-source-as-we-can-make it" ( I am sure Oracle PR can polish up the statement - you get what I am saying, though )

Why are you being sneaky?
From stopping ( and the restarting) Java Time Zone updates to the other stuff that you're upto.
Stop pissing people off and make your stand one way or the other.

I'd also like to ask which planet do you think we live in?
You think you'll make changes to OPEN SOURCE software and people in the community will not notice?
Are you high?

Just take a stand. Once and for all.
Thank you
Just your average Ruby on Rails developer who used to use MySQL before you did the equivalent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacare with the open source software you inherited from Sun

Re:Just use MariaDB ( or Postgres )

[Jade_Wayfarer]

Postgres all good and funky, but switch from MySQL to MariaDB = ~ 10 min of admin time (plus some for backups, if not doing them regularly). Switch all running webapps from MySQL to Postgres = from week to month(s) of programmer's time (there are many nifty MySQL-specific tricks that don't translate to Postgres so well). So I think we all know where all of this is going...

Re:Just use MariaDB ( or Postgres )

[Anonymous Coward]

And all of its new code (i.e. not MySQL) is owned by the same dick that cashed out on MySQL. It's history repeating, but go ahead and use MariaDB until it's sold and forked again so that Monty--that genius bastard--can double dip, then you can switch to the next fork.

Sun Microsystems had a decent reputation in open source circles, and Sun is the company that purchased MySQL AB. Oracle bought Sun a couple of years later, which is really when the game changed. And would you turn down over ten million euro for selling a project to a company like Sun? I wouldn't. How about selling to Oracle? Sure, but I'd expect to be forking the project just as soon as Oracle begins turning the screws.

It is a mistake. Mod parent up!

[rduke15]

No point in all these rants. It's indeed just a bug (for now).

(There are plenty of other good reasons to rant at Oracle)

pot calling the kettle black

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if this wasn't done by mistake:

http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=69512
[19 Jun 7:52] Yngve Svendsen
Thank you for the report. This is indeed a bug, where the build system erroneously and silently started pulling in man pages with the wrong set of copyright headers.

MariaDB looks like it's also dual licensed:

Code Licensing

Similar to other open source projects, Monty Program Ab needs to have a shared ownership of the code that is included in the MariaDB distribution. This can be done by submitting your code under the BSD-new license. The only currently known exceptions to this rule are storage engines and code that is loadable through a plugin. For these, it's enough that the code is GPL.

If you want to submit code under a license other than BSD-new, sign and email the Monty Program Contributor Agreement.
https://kb.askmonty.org/en/community-contributing-to-the-mariadb-project/#code-licensing

Loss of user trust means switch to fork

[tepples]

Distributions of GNU/Linux switch to forks over "shitty". It's almost as if Oracle wants to lose name recognition in favor of MariaDB.

Re:User trust WHOOSH

[Anonymous Coward]

On a related note, why does Giorgio Tsoukalos have such wild and crazy hair?!

Because aliens....

Oracle is saying that this is a bug

[Anonymous Coward]

[19 Jun 7:52] Yngve Svendsen
Thank you for the report. This is indeed a bug, where the build system erroneously and silently started pulling in man pages with the wrong set of copyright headers.

http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=69512

This scenario: no difference between GPL and BSD

[Anonymous Coward]

When you release code under a license, ANY license, that code remains released under that license and cannot be retroactively changed.

HOWEVER, new code added to the old code under a different license (as long as that is allowed by both codes' license terms) means the COMBINED work is available under the more restrictive license only, but the code carried across verbatim is still under the previous license. The license of the new code may mean that you can't get that source code any more, but if you can, through any means, then it's usable under the previous terms.

This is no different to BSD code being taken in by Apple, Microsoft of the GPL: the original code is still available under the old license.

Attention, mods.

[philip.paradis]

The parent post is an outstanding example of mods failing to read more than a handful of words into a post before modding it "+1 Insightful." In fact, the parent post is breathtakingly stupid in its utter failure to even demonstrate an understanding of which organization was responsible for the textual change at hand. To mods active now who are endowed with reading comprehension skills, please mod the parent post down.

Don't get your undies in a bunch.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you actually read the article and the end there is an update pointing to http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=69512 where it is logged as a bug. For now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and will see when it is corrected before I change all my servers DB. I'm no fan or Oracle and my first instinct is to assume the worst for "that fine gentleman" Larry E. but the story is plausible.

Re:Don't get your undies in a bunch.

[Tailhook]

Oracle a week ago:

We never intended for a support contract to be required to keep JDK 7 up to date. TZUpdater was made unavailable on March 8 as part of the End of Public Updates for JDK 6, and as soon as we learned that this affected JDK 7 users we initiated the process of making it available for JDK 7 again

Now this "bug."

Oracle is an unnecessary source of anxiety and risk and it doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt. Seems like Oracle employees working on open source stuff are in "monitise it" mode by default and the mistakes they make are revealing this.

Look up in the sky

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a bird, its a plane, its..its more fud about MySQL lobbed by MariaDB.

Re:The License to the General Public Licence-Licen

[Anonymous Coward]

"GPL isn't a documentation license."

`This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License' link

Yes, but it wasn't designed for documentation.

"The GPL itself isn't licensed under the GPL"

insert brain-fart ...

I have no idea what you're saying here.

Re:The License to the General Public Licence-Licen

[dgharmon]

"Yes, but it wasn't designed for documentation."

When has 'documentation` been deemed not a member of the class 'other work`?

"I have no idea what you're saying here."

You're talking gibberish ...