MySQL Reverses Decision On Closed Source 157
krow writes "I am very happy to be announcing that MySQL will be forgoing close sourcing portions of the MySQL Server. Kaj has the official statement in his blog. No portion of the server will be closed source including backup, encryption, or any storage engines we ship. To quote Kaj 'The encryption and compression backup features will be open source.' This is a change from what was previously posted here on Slashdot. I've posted some additional thoughts on my own blog concerning how we keep open source from becoming crippleware. Word has it that we will also have a panel at this year's OSCON discussing this topic. Contrary to the previous Slashdot discussion, this shows Sun's continued commitment to Open Source."
Lol Slashdot is too much (Score:5, Interesting)
Then Mickos (former CEO of MySQL AB and SVP of Sun Database group) comes here and says that it was MySQL's plan to do this before the acquisition by Sun and that it was in fact Sun who wanted them to release everything to the community. And if Sun had their way it would.
So now that Sun convinces Mickos to change his strategy the headline is "MySQL Reverses Decision On Closed Source"
HAHAHAHAHA
Re:ZFS next to be open sourced? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Great to see? Want to make a bet? (Score:1, Interesting)
Which is why:
a) It was a shocker that the MySQL division of Sun was going to keep parts of the code closed in the first place.
b) This new announcement is not fluff to keep people from whining.
Re:Now change the ZFS license SUN (Score:2, Interesting)
Novell still (almost certainly) owns the SysV code.
Sun bought a liscence from SCO (that is probably invalid)so Sun could release OpenSolaris.
Novells ball...
Novell could easily wave it off with a stipulation that say... ZFS would become GPL or std BSD...
Sun would have the choice of killing OpenSolaris, or marginalizing it via GPLing the only parts of it that gives it any advantage over Linux.
Re:Good day for all (Score:3, Interesting)
An open source company wants to close some of its new features. The "proprietary" software company that bought them wants them to keep everything open.
Somehow, everyone wants to paint the proprietary company in a bad light. The original blog post from the first story never even mentioned Sun but the title on Slashdot was about Sun closing MySQL.
Sun's management has MySQL change that decision and the headline is about MySQL reverting.
There's an obvious bias here that's laughable.
Mickos is the one that needs to adapt here. Though I personally don't think it's fair to give him a hard time about it. I mean the guy just closed a big deal, got a ton of money and needs to do a different job than he was doing for the last 7 or so years. If he does the same stuff in a couple more months, that's a different story.
And this wasn't a "public announcement" it was at a partner meeting. Which is a bit different. And nothing was actually released or finalized, it was just a roadmap to let partners know what to expect. Sometimes these things change but people made a big deal over it.
Most large acquisitions have their hiccups. That shouldn't come as any suprise.
Re:Now change the ZFS license SUN (Score:4, Interesting)
Novell said they have no interest in pursuing Unix copyrights.
Novell is trying to get their 95% portion of the license Sun paid to SCO. By saying the agreement between Sun and SCO was part of the APA between Novell and SCO they are affirming the deal between Sun and SCO. Sun actually helped write SYSVR4 with AT&T before Novell bought it. According to Schwartz, Sun paid AT&T about $100million for rights that basically gave them ownership. What was purchased from SCO were mainly device drivers since SCO's UnixWare had the best x86 support.
What is Novell's position going to be to the public? "We're an open source company but we're going to sue a company for releasing open source?" Nothing good can come to Novell if they challenge Sun.
Re:no onus (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm reminded of a rather large company in Redmond, Washington that carried on similarly throughout the 90's and early 00's, eventually being zapped in the ass for their hubris.
Re:ZFS next to be open sourced? (Score:2, Interesting)
So is a patch not considered to be a derivative work?
It is, but you can dual-license your modifications under both the GPL and the CDDL.
You distribute your modifications to the kernel to add ZFS hooks as one piece (dual-licensed).
Then you distribute the CDDL-licensed pieces as a separate package, modified to utilize the hooks you added to interact directly with the separate CDDL-licensed package.
Your ZFS hooks enable the the separate package to be 'loaded' into the kernel after it is compiled from source.
A derivative work is created when the CDDL -licensed package is loaded, BUT this derivative work is created by the end-user, not you the programmer, or you the person distributing the package.
The act of the user creating a derived work isn't prohibited by the GPL, so long as they do not copy or distribute their derived work.
The modified CDDL-licensed package is a derivative work of your own kernel modifications, hence the choice to dual-license the kernel-modification package.
Re:no onus (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now change the ZFS license SUN (Score:5, Interesting)