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MariaDB CEO Accuses Large Cloud Vendors of Strip-Mining Open Source (zdnet.com)
Big cloud companies are "strip-mining open-source technologies and companies," complains Michael Howard, CEO of MariaDB. At their developer conference, Howard accused "big cloud" of "really abusing the license and privilege [of open source], by not giving back to the community." ZDNet reports:
Even as MariaDB grows by leaps and bounds in enterprise computing at Oracle's expense, Howard sees Oracle and Amazon fighting against it. "Oracle as the example of on-premise lock-in and Amazon being the example of cloud lock-in. You could interchange the names, you can honestly say now that Amazon should just be called Oracle Prime...."
In the first keynote, Austin Rutherford, MariaDB's VP of Customer Success, showed the result of a HammerDB benchmark on AWS EC2... In these tests, AWS's default MariaDB instances did poorly, while AWS homebrew Aurora, which is built on top of MySQL, consistently beat them. The top-performing database management system of all was MariaDB Managed Services on AWS. "My first reaction when I looked at the benchmarks," said Howard, was "maybe there's incompetence going on. Maybe they just don't know how to optimize a DBMS." He observed that one MariaDB customer, one of the biggest retail drug companies in the world, had told MariaDB that "Amazon offers the most vanilla MariaDB around. There's nothing enterprise about it. We could just install MariaDB from source on EC2 and do as well."
He then "began to wonder, Is there something that they're deliberately crippling?" Howard wouldn't go so far as to say AWS is consciously doing a poor job of implementing its MariaDB instances. Howard did say, "And then it became clear that, however, you want to articulate this, there is something not kosher happening." Howard doesn't have much against AWS promoting its own brands... But, if AWS's going out of its way to make a rival service look inferior to its own, well, Howard's not happy about that.
ZDNet adds that "it's also quite possible that unoptimized generic MariaDB instance will simply lag behind AWS-optimized Aurora.
"That said, even in this most innocent take on the benchmark results, cloud customers would be wise to take into consideration that cloud instances of any specific software service may not be created equal."
In the first keynote, Austin Rutherford, MariaDB's VP of Customer Success, showed the result of a HammerDB benchmark on AWS EC2... In these tests, AWS's default MariaDB instances did poorly, while AWS homebrew Aurora, which is built on top of MySQL, consistently beat them. The top-performing database management system of all was MariaDB Managed Services on AWS. "My first reaction when I looked at the benchmarks," said Howard, was "maybe there's incompetence going on. Maybe they just don't know how to optimize a DBMS." He observed that one MariaDB customer, one of the biggest retail drug companies in the world, had told MariaDB that "Amazon offers the most vanilla MariaDB around. There's nothing enterprise about it. We could just install MariaDB from source on EC2 and do as well."
He then "began to wonder, Is there something that they're deliberately crippling?" Howard wouldn't go so far as to say AWS is consciously doing a poor job of implementing its MariaDB instances. Howard did say, "And then it became clear that, however, you want to articulate this, there is something not kosher happening." Howard doesn't have much against AWS promoting its own brands... But, if AWS's going out of its way to make a rival service look inferior to its own, well, Howard's not happy about that.
ZDNet adds that "it's also quite possible that unoptimized generic MariaDB instance will simply lag behind AWS-optimized Aurora.
"That said, even in this most innocent take on the benchmark results, cloud customers would be wise to take into consideration that cloud instances of any specific software service may not be created equal."
These guys keep saying "open" and then they keep complaining about what others do with the source. Open means you don't get to control what other people do.
If MariaDB cared they should have used the AGPL. This has been an issue with open source for a long time now. Solutions are available, and you need to think before using the license.
1) BSD - if you want your code to be used as many places as possible (even if you don't know about it)
2) GPL - If you want to get paid when people use your code, either by keeping it free (redistribution/returning modifications), or by dual-licensing.
3) AGPL - When you want to close the loophole here.
And we can also add that the GPL3 closes the tivo and patent loopholes. Decide what you want, and choose the right license, otherwise you'll end up whining like Michael Howard.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
They aren't following the spirit of the GPL. They are being anti-social: taking from the labors of others, and not contributing back.
There is no law against being anti-social, so they are free to do it.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A key factor is "possible" there. When your original sys-admin tasks have never been automated or kept in source control, the costs of shifting to a managed environment are startling. Decades of technical debt are often due in a very short period. I've particularly run into this with clients or partners who insist on optimizing their own kernels.
It is the easy choice for management, because "everybody uses AWS".
I've had to constantly defend my decision to use IBM Cloud as backend for an educational app. Because "everybody else" uses AWS. And this is in a primarily academic setting and background (spinoff from a project originally developed at a major U.S. university). We faced some issues with learning curve and the fact that you can't easily find consultants with IBM Cloud experience, and the "everybody" argument came up. It was eventually resolved, we got over the learning curve, and IBM has great support if you are willing to pony-up a modest $200/month for support.
It boggles my mind that so many small/medium/large businesses in retail, wholesale, transportation, distribution, etc. are trusting their data and IT to and funding a company that is out to put them out of business. AWS is the ONLY real money-maker at Amazon. Their online retail operation is FINALLY making a 2% profit!
IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure are the RATIONAL choices right now if you want to use "big cloud" for critical infrastructure. We did not go with Azure because we do not have a Windows-based infrastructure, not into ASP, etc. etc. Though I realize that Azure has more Linux servers than Windows and offers the same open-source Linux-based solutions as the other cloud services. I think Azure would be a FINE choice for any company that is already bought-in to the Microsoft infrastructure, as they offer many unique services that would allow companies with in-house Windows-based server to move some or all to the cloud.
Neither IBM nor Microsoft is interested in putting your retail business out of business.
Remember: there is no cloud, just other people's computers. In this case it is Amazon's computers.
And Amazon will rip you off if they can get away with it. Why is Bezos so filthy rich? Exactly.
That's a naive statement.
FOUNDED... yes... in some cases.
But on an ongoing basis, most big/useful open source projects are funded primarily by corporate sponsors, who contribute money, talent, or both. Many companies contribute in-kind services, by assigning personnel either part or full-time to open-source projects.
Another similar funding model is having a corporate parent that does consulting, hand-holding, hosting, etc. while opening the source for all. Yet another is the spin-off project that a parent organization needs for their own purposes, but is unrelated to their primary business. By open-sourcing, they get extra eyes on the project to find bugs, round-out capabilities, discover new use cases, etc.
FEW important open-source projects are purely or even primarily volunteer indie projects!
Unfortunately, this means that open source projects often have to kowtow to their corporate sponsors, and can suffer a sudden loss of talent and viability when they are "cut off" by a corporate sponsor.
A good example of this is jQuery Mobile, which the jQuery Foundation still refuses to declare dead. Adobe pulled the plug years ago, it is Dead, Jim! A distant memory in the rearview mirror, but a ghost repo and ghost website remains, sitting there snagging unwitting third-world developers who think that it is still A Thing.