Re: FW: [webmaster] Comparison to MySQL

Justin Clift wrote:

> Josh Berkus wrote:
>
>> Hmmm ....
>>
>>>True, but that doesn't take away from Joshua's point at all. He is
>>>accurate that MySQL is GPL, and it would live on. Their interested
>>>install base is large enough to establish a new developer community if
>>>the MySQL company went belly up too.
>>
>> SO it would be more relevant to say that "it's a single-company project, which
>> can and has introduced feature and licensing changes without consideration
>> for the greater community." ?
>
> Ouch.
>
> But yep, I'd say that's accurate too.

Agreed,

very big ouch ... they do with the code, the license and everything else
whatever they think is best for their revenue. The reason why this had
worked so far is that they successfully prevented the building of any
open source developer community.

A database today is not a product, it is a tool. Customers don't buy a
database, they buy a solution, and the database used inside of that
solution might require a license, they don't care ... the decision
makers are the guys with the ties and (if they aren't overpaid) they
look for the cost of ownership of the complete solution, not the pieces.

The fine difference between databases and the other tools like build
environment, sourcecontrol, compiler and so on is, that the most
important part of the database is the runtime component - the server.
And that is the very piece where MySQL tries to keep the strong grip.
They love to tell everyone that they have a huge user community and that
they have many contributors - and they will deny a hundred times that
there is a difference between implementing a stored procedure system and
a little fix in the JDBC driver. Yet they will insist that you sign over
the copyright for the former, or it cannot be added to the distribution,
sorry. And they can just make that decision because they have total
control over the source code repository.

I think this little point about the copyrights and who gets the bucks
for the licenses was the source for the MySQL/NuSphere (aka PeerDirect)
divorce ... but I might have misunderstood something there.

Jan

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