MySQL Quietly Drops Support For Debian Linux [UPDATED] 339
volts writes "MySQL quietly deprecated support for most Linux distributions on October 16, when its 'MySQL Network' support plan was replaced by 'MySQL Enterprise.' MySQL now supports only two Linux distributions — Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. We learned of this when MySQL declined to sell us support for some new Debian-based servers. Our sales rep 'found out from engineering that the current Enterprise offering is no longer supported on Debian OS.' We were told that 'Generic Linux' in MySQL's list of supported platforms means 'generic versions of the implementations listed above'; not support for Linux in general." Update: 12/13 20:52 GMT by J : MySQL AB's Director of Architecture (and former Slash programmer) Brian Aker corrects an apparent miscommunication in a blog post: "we are just starting to roll out [Enterprise] binaries... We don't build binaries for Debian in part because the Debian community does a good job themselves... If you call MySQL and you have support we support you if you are running Debian (the same with Suse, RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu and others)... someone in Sales was left with the wrong information"
And yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know where I'll not be spending my IT budget next year.
Get Ready... (Score:5, Interesting)
All of my servers run Debian (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Wow... this is the beginning of the end (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Generic, huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Up to and including Slashcode.
It is now catch 22. Everybody uses MySQL because everyone uses MySQL.
Heck I use MySQL for our CMS because not every module supports PostgreSQL.
I would much rather use PostgreSQL for everything but I don't have time to re-invent the wheel.
Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Isn't "Linux" "generic" almost by definition. The only differences between packages are choices and package manager and usually only a few homegrown eye candy pieces.
No really, I'm not trolling. I'm serious. I've used all sorts of different "distros", Redhat, SuSE, Debian, Slackware etc and I am able to quickly move between them because at the core of it, its all but the same. And I'm not a Linux expert by any stretch of the imagination, so if I can manage, why can't the big boys who do nothing but Linux?
Did anyone catch the relationship? (Score:4, Interesting)
-BA
Re:Let's fork it! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think there is a market for this. The only thing you need is a couple of good people. You/we(the community) could also create a company GPL style. Create a pool of people willing to devote there time on solving MySQL Debian support problems. Create a ticket like system and assign questions to people in the pool.
This way you can quickly create a non-profit company with little to non investments. The biggest "problem" is that you have to attract people willing to become part of you expert pool.
While writing this, it might even be a good challenge to start this..... I will think some more about this.
Regards,
Johan Louwers.
Re:Opportunity for Postgres (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
really?
seriously?
hahahahahahaha
What your support contract buys you is the ability to call someone on the phone. If it makes your boss happy to have someone to call and yell at when shit breaks, well, ok.
Re:Wow... this is the beginning of the end (Score:3, Interesting)
Community support is a great thing, and hopefully all of us that USE F/OSS software give back to that in some way. But the business world, and many individuals, operate on the principle of "you get what you pay for." Most of the time this is a good guideline, but F/OSS is an exception. There are QUALITY products out there, and quality support, available for no upfront financial cost. But in the minds of many business types, if you pay nothing, it must be worth nothing.
(car analogy to follow)
Think about it this way; would you take a FREE car without ANY suspicion that there's something wrong with it? Perhaps, if you knew the seller and trusted him. You and I trust the seller (the OSS community) to provide good products and services, but the average PHB does not know this community - he cannot trust his enterprise with such an unknown.
Another way to put it is that you and I can see the VALUE, independent of price, of OSS, but many others don't. They associate the value with the price tag. Without PAID support, the support is worthless.
Re:Opportunity for Postgres (Score:3, Interesting)
Right on. And with the excellent performance of the newly-released PostgreSQL 8.2 [blogs.com], it's a good time to make the switch.
Re:Solution (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Let's fork it! (Score:3, Interesting)
. . . without the ability to buy support from MySQL for it, that is. Third parties, system integrators, etc. will continue to support whatever their customers pay them for. So while this is a blow for Debian in big enterprise, let's face it, how many big enterprise environments were running straight Debian in the first place? Red Hat's king with SUSE buzzing around their ankles. This won't affect small to mid sized organizations with outside IT people.
MySQL is a ``real'' database (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Let's fork it! (Score:3, Interesting)
I *know* that they went this way with the Seamonkey crew. Here is a reproduced Newsgroup response from a Seamonkey developer on the subject of Debian and Iceape (the previous thread entry is in italics and the developers response is bold:
The "SeaMonkey" trademark is held by MoFo, but AIUI, they allow the Council to grant people the right to use it.
Well, MoFo applied for the trademarks, but doesn't hold them yet, as they've not yet been granted. They applied for them representing us though, and they will leave management of the trademark in the hands of the SeaMonkey Council.
But AIUI, Debian has moved past caring about using MoFo's trademarks.
And AFAICT from this thread, the level of bitterness on the SeaMonkey side seems even higher than in the Mozilla community in general.
That may very much be true, as they pre-judged us of being the same as MoCo and not even listening to what we wanted to say. Us being legally backend by MoFo was enough for them to not even really discuss this topic, i.e. not even asking what the terms for using the SeaMonkey trademarks would be.
And their choice of name for the clone they are shipping is an insult in my ears anyways, but that's just my personal opinion.
BTW, I really think their inconsistent treatment of trademarks is enough reason for not understanding them anyways. Their own trademarks are protected with one of the strictest possible policies (no use except explicitely granted by Debian) and then they accuse other of being too strict - and it seems some of their responsible people have not yet understood that trademarks and copyright are two completely different things legally.
Anyways, for me, that discussion is over and Debian itself is dead meat in this regard for me personally (note that ubuntu even departs from Debian's path for MoCo trademarks already).
Elsewhere in the thread, IceApe was described by the same person as a 'Crappy Clone'.
Re:Let's fork it! (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd have to disagree with that. I've watched three large companies for whom I've worked -- all Fortune 500 companies -- kill off profitable products and services that were not as profitable as they wanted. The company I'm working for right now sold off three business units because they didn't have a profit margin above 30%. We're only keeping the parts of the company that can beat 30%: if you don't, you're out the door. There are probably a lot of fields where companies can't afford to throw away marginal profit, but there are plenty of fields where it's not worth chasing chump change when there's a 50% profit margin to be hunted down and seized.
If that's the case, it's quite possible another, smaller and more agile, company could live very comfortably on the profits from this discard.
Re:Suse, Red Hat and ?? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is part of Microsoft's campaign against what they term "hobbiests". I use Linux both at work and at home and although I find the term hobbiest insulting, that is what people would probably consider me. I find the uses that I apply Linux to at home to be quite serious. Calling a professional IT guy who uses Linux at home for day-to-day stuff a hobbiest is akin to calling an electrician or plumber who does work on his house an amateur. The fallout that I see is that potentially in another four or five years, I may find it very hard to use Linux at home unless I want to buy into the commercially blessed versions. And if I do buy into them, I'll have a second rate Linux that makes Windows look good. (You know that MS won't allow any MS blessed Linux to outperform or outdo Windows in certain key arenas) If I continue to try and use the non-premium Linux distros I'll probably find that support for new hardware and functionality is just as bad as it was in the early days because the developer mindshare will not be there. At least that's what I'd term a worst case scenario.
In reality it probably won't be THAT bad, but it will hurt. Even though the code is free/open for many of these projects, I've seen what a lack or very low count of talented developers can do to slow down or kill an otherwise decent project. We all have. It's likely that I'll be able to use non-premium Linux at home in the future, but not without even more headaches and hassles than I experience today. The premium versions will likely offer a better experience but always at the expense of being a step or two behind Windows (which is not the current situation). MS is likely doing this because they see that Linux has already surpassed Windows on many fronts. It's more clever maneuvering from MS. If only the FOSS world could think that way sometimes...
Re:Generic, huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Caveat: those bindings link against GPLed libraries. It's not possible to use MySQL as a backend to proprietary applications without shelling out some cash. Whether that is good or bad is another issue. Note that even Oracle allows restribution of their client libraries [oracle.com] under those conditions; this restriction seems to be unique to MySQL.
Re:Indeed... (Score:2, Interesting)