Sun May Begin Close Sourcing MySQL Features

An anonymous reader writes "From the MySQL User's Conference, Sun has announced, and former CEO Marten Mickos has confirmed, that Sun will be close sourcing sections of the MySQL code base. Sun will begin with close sourcing the backup solutions to MySQL, and will continue with more advanced features. With Oracle owning Innodb, and it being GPL, does this mean that MySQL will be removing it to introduce these features? Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything."

This is great news....

For PostgreSQL :) http://www.postgresql.org/ [postgresql.org]

Would you like another round of ammo with that foot gun Sun?

Re:This is great news....

I used to be one of MySQL's vociferous defenders, arguing that speed, ease of use, quality of documentation, and the size of the community made up for its limitations relative to PostgreSQL. But this is pretty much the end. Sun is clearly determined to destroy whatever's good about it. For small, lightweight projects, SQLite is the way to go, and for anything bigger, PostgreSQL is now the clear choice. I guess it's time to see if PostgreSQL's documentation and tools have managed to get any less user-hostile over the years.

The one remaining question is mindshare. For example, pretty much every ISP offers MySQL as part of a basic hosting package. No one's saying they have to stop doing that, but are they going to start offering other open source DBMSs in the same way now? I sure hope so.

Re:This is great news....

I guess it's time to see if PostgreSQL's documentation and tools have managed to get any less user-hostile over the years.

I've been using PostgreSQL on-and-off for about 7 years now, and I have to say: it's *all* gotten a lot better.

In fact, feel free to check out (I think it's on Safari) how slick things have gotten, try Korry Douglas' book (forgot the title right now). I think it's a stellar example of book writing in general, and does a very good job of explaining a lot of the advanced features (like clustering, failover, etc).

I won't miss MySQL one bit--PG rules!

Re:This is great news....

Having a good bit of experience with both, I'd say that the documentation and overall support structure for PG is about the same as MySQL these days.

The only caveat that typically hangs up new users (especially ones coming from a MySQL background) and is not particularly clearly documented is the default authentication mechanism.

By default (at least on many distributions), Postgres uses "ident" authentication, which means no password is required for database logins on a local socket. What *is* required, on the other hand, is that you must be logged in/running as the UNIX user of same name. Obviously this poses problems for webapps that want their own database user and is generally just very confusing for users who are used to the database having its own independent set of usernames and passwords (which Postgres still does, for remote connections... causing further confusion)

Of course, like any good database Postgres will be more than happy to handle its own user authentication entirely natively, you simply have to use md5 instead of ident in pg_hba.conf [google.ca]

Re:This is great news....

Even nicer PostreSQL has an animal mascot, I can see the jokes now: A Penguin, Indian and Elephant walk into a bar...

We even still get a pronounceable acronym LAPP. It looks like the future is still rosy for the rest of us.

Re:This is great news....

For PostgreSQL :) http://www.postgresql.org/ [postgresql.org]

Would you like another round of ammo with that foot gun Sun?

From the pSQL web page:

Best of all, PostgreSQL's source code is available under the most liberal open source license: the BSD license. This license gives you the freedom to use, modify and distribute PostgreSQL in any form you like, open or closed source. Any modifications, enhancements, or changes you make are yours to do with as you please. As such, PostgreSQL is not only a powerful database system capable of running the enterprise, it is a development platform upon which to develop in-house, web, or commercial software products that require a capable RDBMS.

That seems to be the same thing Sun is saying - we're going to add some closed source features to MySQL; the same as pSQL's license allows.

Re:This is great news....

Close sourcing is never good news for anyone...

Tell that to the Chinese. We lost our manufacturing base to them. They source all of our close we wear nowadays.

wait a minute....

I know it's all over the story on Slashdot's end but the article it self does not say anything will be closed. GPLed code can be open but cost money. Am I missing some other article? Because to me it sounds like they plan on doing things the Red Hat way. Public free version and Enterprise pay version.

harsh judgement

didn't sun buy star office and give us the OPEN SOURCE - openoffice.org?

given the size and nature of this move, I don't begrudge sun anything in its commitment to open source.

Re:harsh judgement

quiet! stop ruining my argument with facts

Re:harsh judgement

And don't forget Netbeans.. Oh, and SPARC..

Last part a Joke?

OpenOffice.org - no mention eh. :P
Java - I am running the IcedTea free software version right now
OpenSolaris - might not be GPL, but it still qualifies as free software... right?

Of course I'm hoping the first part is a joke too.

Re:Last part a Joke?

That when RMS himself says that Sun is the biggest single corporate contributor to open source.

Slashdot's credibility is drowning.

Comment

Marten replied already:

Marten Mickos Says:
April 16th, 2008 at 17:28:26

Thanks for all your comments on our business model. I wanted to present here the quick facts around this to avoid misunderstandings:

In 6.0 there will be native backup functionality in the server available for anyone and all (Community, Enterprise) under GPL.

Additionally we will develop high-end add-ons (such as encryption, native storage engine-specific drivers) that we will deliver to customers in the MySQL Enterprise product only. We have not yet decided under what licence we will release those add-ons (GPL, some other FOSS licence, and/or commercial).

Because the main backup functionality goes into the main server under GPL, anyone can of course use the api and build their own add-ons or other modifications.

Marten

-1, Flamebait

Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything.

That's rubbish. The article claiming OpenSolaris isn't really open source bases it on the lack of community and ideology. I'm sorry, but if you want ideology, then it's Free Software you're after, not open source.

OpenSolaris is definitely open source, and Sun don't have a poor history of open sourcing things. Anybody who says otherwise has an axe to grind.

What the hell?

Sun has had a very poor history of actually open sourcing anything

Yes, let's forget about Java, that was recently GPL'd. Or Open Solaris, including ZFS. Or Open Office. Or OpenSPARC (you can download and implement their latest processors). Or Netbeans (and Forte before that, though it was lousy). Or being a patron of the FSF [fsf.org].

Those guys are such dicks, they never give the community anything.

Sun to Begin Close Sourcing MySQL

Oh, no they don't. They can't do that to MySQL.

They can do it to TheirSQL, but not MySQL...

Comments from MySQL

Thanks for all the comments on this. We are listening attentively. Let me clarify some facts:

* The business decision on this was made by MySQL AB (by me as the then CEO) prior to the acquisition by Sun, so this has nothing to do with Sun. On the contrary, Sun is more likely to influence this decision the other way.

* It is not a quesiton of close sourcing any existing code, nor anything in the core server. Everything we have released under GPL continues to be under GPL, and the core server will always be under GPL (or some other FOSS licence).

* We will introduce backup functionality for all users (Community and Enterprise) under GPL in version 6.0.

* Additionally we will develop high-end add-ons (such as encryption, native storage engine-specific drivers) that we will deliver to customers in the MySQL Enterprise product only. We have not yet decided under what licence we will release those add-ons (GPL, some other FOSS licence, and/or commercial).

* At all times, because the main backup functionality goes into the core server under GPL, anyone can of course use the api and build their own add-ons or other modifications.

Those are the facts on this. The interesting topic is of course the one of the business model and what the best business model for FOSS software is. I hope to cover that in a separate posting.

In all of this, you have our undivided continued commitment to providing a fantastic and complete MySQL server under GPL for anyone to download and use. If we for whatever reason would not do that, we would risk losing users to other open source databases or risk seeing a fork of our own product. This is the power of open source.

Make sense?

Marten
previously CEO of MySQL, now SVP at Sun

Re:Comments from MySQL

If this is true, could the editors please alter the article title accordingly? Or at least point directly to the above comment? These articles get indexed.

MySQL & FOSS

All,

I tried to clarify the facts in another posting a moment ago: http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=525246&cid=23098626

Here I will discuss the business model considerations, MySQL's commitment to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and why we made the decision we made.

First and foremost: we at MySQL firmly believe that open source is a superior way of producing software. You get better quality faster, and you often get better innovation too.

So it is not lightly that we have decided a few times to produce non-open software, such as the MySQL Monitor introduced some years ago. So why do we do that?

The reason is that we have an ambition not only to produce FOSS code, but also to be a profitable business that can exist for a long time. Each time we make more money, we hire more developers to develop GPL code.

If the world were perfect, we would only produce GPL code and we would have a great business that cna fund the software development. But we have found that the world is not perfect. We have been experimenting with a variety of business models around FOSS (dual licensing, support only, simple subscriptions, different binaries for community and enterprise, non-open source features) to find the best one. And we will continue to experiment until we are satisfied. We need to find a model that allows us to produce a ton of great code under GPL while having the financial strength to do all this.

To get to this goal of ours, we believe we have to be more pragmatic than dogmatic. Call it a necessary evil if you like. Having production add-ons that we provide only to paying customers currently seems to use to be a useful model. Our partners and customers think it is great. Many users think it is great. But not all do (as evident from this thread on /.). I would hope we could please all, but I am afraid we cannot.

In all of this - i.e. as we experiment with open source business models (as there aren't really any role models bigger than ourselves that we could learn from) - we remain fully committed to producing the core database server always under the GPL (or some other approved FOSS licence).

In this work, we feel we have been able to produce enormous benefits to the world in the form of GPL software. The MySQL server could not have evolved as much as it did (not that I am saying it has evolved perfectly) if we hadn't had a revenue stream to fund the hiring of developers and others. We have open sourced MySQL Cluster which was an advanced closed-source database engine at Ericsson. We open sourced the Falcon storage engine.

I can appreciate that many of you are upset with our decisions. It has happened before that the community has been upset with us. But I hope that you can see that

* we are trying to be fully open and transparent with our decision-making in these areas

* we have a full commitment to produce the core MySQL server under GPL

* we are actively listening to your input

We can probably not please all, but you should know that we are trying to serve our community. We are immensely thankful for all the support and contributions that we have received in our 13-year history. We are hoping that we are good stewards of the MySQL phenomenon, and we hope that you can come to terms with the fact that we find revenue generation a vital part of our mission.

We may not have come up with the perfect business model yet (and perhaps the decision that is here being debated was utterly stupid), but we are determined to continue to seek the perfect business model for open source software so that we can continue to exist and be strong, and so that other software entrepreneurs can learn from our successes and mistakes.

Finally, please note that this entire decision and reasoning is something we developed on our own at MySQL AB several months ago, before being acquired by Sun. Sun has not asked us to do this or that. Or in fact, Sun has asked us the opposite - i.e. whether we should not

Is anyone actually reading TFA?

Looking at the actual link, this is talking about select _new_ features. The /. summary clearly is trying to scare us all into thinking that existing parts of MySQL would somehow be turned into a closed-source product.

Talk about someone trying to be misleading...

mrghemp

The title of this article is a bit dramatic and incorrect. There is nothing in the story about the core MySQL engine being moved from open source to a closed source mentioned in the story. Rather a fancy new backup add-on is being released to Enterprise edition, and possibly added to the community version later.

MySQL is one of the most popular open source products out there, but they get lambasted if they create an add-on and want to actually get paid for it. Too many ppl react as if they are defecating on a holy shrine in the land of FOSS.

The title of this article and some of the reactions here strikes me a chicken little "the sky is falling" BS. I love open source software and the general movement, but I hate it when people jump to conclusions like this... and jumping to conclusions like this seems to happen all to often by ppl on /. and the open source community in general. I'd like to see more people showing respect for a company that has done so much for open source and respect the fact that they deserve to actually make a little money along the way.

I can't help but wonder how many of the people, who treat this story like the evil Sun is going ruin MySQL, run MySQL but haven't open sourced the programs that they've written that access the database... I'd bet a hell of a lot of closed source programs use MySQL as their database... should we scream at them for being evil too?

Re:Not that I begrudge them a right to make a buck

That's not what the linked blog post says, basically what they're doing is developing new features to be put in MySQL 6.0 enterprise, and these _new_ features won't show up in community.

Re:Not that I begrudge them a right to make a buck

We do get to keep what we made. If it's under the GPL, we can always fork it into a new Open Source product called OurSQL. It's just that we won't be able to integrate any of their proprietary new features that are NOT under the GPL. But, hey, who needs 'em for that? If Open Source could get it this far, odds are good Open Source can do even more.

They are forking the code

Sun will only develop and release certain features in the Enterprise version, specifically relating to online backup, management, and other advanced features. What's in the current version stays in the current version, but they will phase out those features in the community branch. Someone can still port them from the old version, but even then, we won't get the benefit of Sun's new developments.