Petition to keep mySQL out of Oracle's control

[ScottMac]

I got an email pointing to this site:
http://www.helpmysql.org/en/theissue

It is an online petition that attempts to keep mySQL an open resource.

The three options they are suggesting (you can select one, all, or alternatives) are:

* MySQL must be divested to a suitable third party that can continue to
develop it under the GPL.

* Oracle must commit to a linking exception for applications that use
MySQL with the client libraries (for all programming languages), for
plugins and libmysqld. MySQL itself remains licensed under the GPL.

* Oracle must release all past and future versions of MySQL (until
December 2012) under the Apache Software License 2.0 or similar
permissive license so that developers of applications and derived
versions (forks) have flexibility concerning the code.


Whether you're a fan of mySQL or not, having a classic open resource absorbed by arguably their biggest commercial competitor is a bad precedent to set, IMO.

If you agree, please visit the site and help by signing their petition and spreading the word.

Thanks

 

[Cogman]

Online petitions don't work. Not only that, but MySQL is covered under the GPL. Even if oracle stops doing anything with mySQL, or tries to kill it all together, nothing is going to stop someone from producing a derivative work.

 

[heymrdj]

Online petitions don't work. Not only that, but MySQL is covered under the GPL. Even if oracle stops doing anything with mySQL, or tries to kill it all together, nothing is going to stop someone from producing a derivative work.

This.

I would love to see MySQL stay as is, but I seriously doubt that will happen. I can see a repeat story of the Youtube/Google buyout coming soon enough. Shittier features/service with added cost.

 

[her209]

Did something change? I thought MySql was acquired by Sun Microsystems.

EDIT: Never mind, I see Oracle bought Sun.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I hate how successful open source projects end up being bought out by money hungry corporations. It scared me enough when Sun bought it but at least Sun is generally open source friendly so they kept it as is, but now Oracle, that scares me.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

I would think people would be thrilled to have MySQL in the hands of a money hungry corporation. The nature of the license is such that they can't close it off and make it private, but a business having a stake of any magnitude in the project helps deal with the fundamental weaknesses of free and open development, without sacrificing it's strengths.

 

[Red Squirrel]

The problem with mega corporations is they have lot of power, they may not always do what is right, and being so big, who is going to stop them? nobody really can. The GPL is just a set of rules that developers have made, it's not the law. They could easily turn it closed source or do whatever they want.

The good news is, I'm sure a group of open source devs would take the latest open source version and make a separate branch off of it and call it something else (since "MySQL" would probably be a trademark now). Now what worse could happen is they could patent the MySQL language, then that would make things much harder. I don't think Oracle is that evil though, so we'll see what happens. If it was MS or Apple or something, I would be more worried.

 

[Colt45]

The GPL is just a set of rules that developers have made, it's not the law. They could easily turn it closed source or do whatever they want.

 

[sourceninja]

The problem with mega corporations is they have lot of power, they may not always do what is right, and being so big, who is going to stop them? nobody really can. The GPL is just a set of rules that developers have made, it's not the law. They could easily turn it closed source or do whatever they want.

The good news is, I'm sure a group of open source devs would take the latest open source version and make a separate branch off of it and call it something else (since "MySQL" would probably be a trademark now). Now what worse could happen is they could patent the MySQL language, then that would make things much harder. I don't think Oracle is that evil though, so we'll see what happens. If it was MS or Apple or something, I would be more worried.

They could patent the SQL language??? sigh...

Sun did require an assignment of copyright (of sorts) to contribute to msyql. So they could change the license for future versions of msyql. However that would do nothing but force all their contributors to take the last official release and start a new project. So it's never going to happen.

 

[Nothinman]

Now what worse could happen is they could patent the MySQL language, then that would make things much harder. I don't think Oracle is that evil though, so we'll see what happens. If it was MS or Apple or something, I would be more worried.

SQL is an ANSI and ISO standard and with the fact that there have been SQL implementations for >20 years there's no way they could patent it. And frankly Oracle is a lot more scary as a corporation than MS and Apple.

 

[Ka0t1x]

I was thinking about this when I first heard of the Sun buy.. There's things I love about oracle that I wish MySQL would have, and vice versa. This could be a win/win for a lot of people if its played correctly.

And frankly Oracle is a lot more scary as a corporation than MS and Apple.

This.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Sun is one of the most benevolent for-profit companies in the tech industry.

Oracle is a lot more scary as a corporation than MS and Apple.

QFT x 1000

 

[Markbnj]

SQL is an ANSI and ISO standard and with the fact that there have been SQL implementations for >20 years there's no way they could patent it. And frankly Oracle is a lot more scary as a corporation than MS and Apple.

No kidding. Anyone who has worked in IT and run their software knows how rapacious the company can be. At my last (and hopefully really last) big corporate job I was writing checks for more than $150k a year in support costs for six processors running an older version of the flagship db. I don't think we ever once used their support for anything while I was there, but all my superiors were afraid to stop paying the fees.

 

[degibson]

Oracle will probably gut Sun. That includes MySQL. It makes sense for Oracle to kill MySQL completely, inasmuch as they can, to reduce competition. But somebody somewhere will fork MySQL as their own project, so its development will continue... somewhere. They just can't call it 'MySQL' anymore.

 

[sourceninja]

No kidding. Anyone who has worked in IT and run their software knows how rapacious the company can be. At my last (and hopefully really last) big corporate job I was writing checks for more than $150k a year in support costs for six processors running an older version of the flagship db. I don't think we ever once used their support for anything while I was there, but all my superiors were afraid to stop paying the fees.

Not to mention, they license by core and with sun going EOL with a lot of the systems with lower numbers of cores our licensing costs are going to skyrocket next replacement cycle. Unfortunately we are tied to oracle...

 

[Markbnj]

Not to mention, they license by core and with sun going EOL with a lot of the systems with lower numbers of cores our licensing costs are going to skyrocket next replacement cycle. Unfortunately we are tied to oracle...

You can migrate in-house apps, obviously, if that makes sense, but a lot of people are tied to third-party systems on Oracle. Don't know if that describes you, but in our case it was PeopleSoft and one old accounting system.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

The problem with mega corporations is they have lot of power, they may not always do what is right, and being so big, who is going to stop them? nobody really can. The GPL is just a set of rules that developers have made, it's not the law. They could easily turn it closed source or do whatever they want.

No they can't. They can develop new code on the existing code and take that private. But the existing code is already open source and anything other people develop off of it can be open source. The code and the spirit will live on even if it's under a new name.

 

[MrChad]

I hate how successful open source projects end up being bought out by money hungry corporations. It scared me enough when Sun bought it but at least Sun is generally open source friendly so they kept it as is, but now Oracle, that scares me.

Sun is open source friendly?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sun is open source friendly?

Compared to other companies I'd say yes. Lot of their stuff is free/open source. For one, they kept the mysql project alive. They could have easily just started charging for it or something.

But if it's going in the hands of a company like oracle then the fate of mysql is more likely to be doomed.

There's always postgres I guess, makers of php software will just have to start supporting it more.

 

[mahesh2k]

If MySQL becomes closed source or with more restrictions than current one then i'm sure many Cpanel based Linux servers will replace it with PostgreSQL. And surely, MySQL will lose some share on server as i find it dominating when i see many hosting companies offering more of MySQL than PostgreSQL or any any other. If they made any changes to current offerings, they'll lose for sure.

 

[Nothinman]

Sun is open source friendly?

More than a lot of other places. Just look at their involvement over the past few years with OpenSolaris, Java, MySQL, VirtualBox, Org, etc.

 

[MrChad]

More than a lot of other places. Just look at their involvement over the past few years with OpenSolaris, Java, MySQL, VirtualBox, Org, etc.

I'll admit I haven't followed the company too closely, so I may be off-base, but they've had terribly restrictive licensing around Java for years up until recently, when they finally open sourced it (in a somewhat desperate attempt to salvage their marketshare). The same is true for Solaris.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate Sun's contributions to the projects you mentioned, but their move to openness with Java and Solaris has been a recent one.

 

[MrChad]

MySQL is still not a major player in the Enterprise DB space. Oracle is far more concerned about Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2 than they are about MySQL. Oracle knows that if they change the licensing around on MySQL, the user community will simply fork the code and continue to develop it. I guess time will tell what they end up doing with it.

 

[Nothinman]

I'll admit I haven't followed the company too closely, so I may be off-base, but they've had terribly restrictive licensing around Java for years up until recently, when they finally open sourced it (in a somewhat desperate attempt to salvage their marketshare). The same is true for Solaris.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate Sun's contributions to the projects you mentioned, but their move to openness with Java and Solaris has been a recent one.

Well they've been working on and releasing source for OpenSolaris for almost 5 years now. Which, technically is still fairly recent considering Sun will be 28yrs old this year.

Sure they're no where near the contributers that someone like RedHat is, but they've contributed a lot more than most other companies. And the stuff they acquired (Org, MySQL, etc) they've tried to find a happy medium between a commercial branded releases and open source releases.

MySQL is still not a major player in the Enterprise DB space. Oracle is far more concerned about Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2 than they are about MySQL. Oracle knows that if they change the licensing around on MySQL, the user community will simply fork the code and continue to develop it. I guess time will tell what they end up doing with it.

Yea, their best bet is to keep it alive. Killing it will just create bad press while not having done anything about the software itself. Worst case for MySQL is a new home and name change to something like OurSQL.

 

[Cogman]

Bwahaha..

Ok, You all should have a good read of
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1496966

comments on this very subject.

They are pretty much all the same. If monty didn't want mySQL to go into corporate hands, WTH did he sell it for 1 billion dollars?