MySQL Man Pages Silently Relicensed Away From GPL 243
An anonymous reader writes "The MariaDB blog is reporting a small change to the license covering the man pages to MySQL. Until recently, the governing license was GPLv2. Now the license reads, 'This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are protected by intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted in your license agreement or allowed by law, you may not use, copy, reproduce, translate, broadcast, modify, license, transmit, distribute, exhibit, perform, publish, or display any part, in any form, or by any means. Reverse engineering, disassembly, or decompilation of this software, unless required by law for interoperability, is prohibited.'"
glad i am moving to mariaDB (Score:2)
like oracle but come on Larry no need to be that greedy
Re: (Score:2)
(Nothing to do with Oracle screwing it up - I moved back around the 6.4 relase. IMHO Postgres was always better on Linux/Unix, and MySQL's popularity is really only due to it having a Windows installer first.)
Re:glad i am moving to mariaDB (Score:5, Insightful)
Glad I moved to PostgreSQL.
(Nothing to do with Oracle screwing it up - I moved back around the 6.4 relase. IMHO Postgres was always better on Linux/Unix, and MySQL's popularity is really only due to it having a Windows installer first.)
That's not at all why MySQL was popular. It was dead simple to get started on, you could dump/reload databases to text files trivially, and you could learn on a platform with minimal support for everything so there wasn't a stack of binders work of documentation. It was fast, free, had minimal complexity for a DB, and had a clear path from first tutorial to production.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but that was a long time ago. MySQL had minimum complexity for a DB but it also had minimal performance in anything but simple lookups. (With those it was stupid fast.) To imply that is still sufficient reason to remain on MySQL is to vet your product using a type of user inertia to stifle movement from a now-lesser product to a perhaps better one. That is what Microsoft does to reduce defections from e.g., Office to Open Office.
I don't know why, but I can't get rid of the suspicion that if you kickstarted another billion to Monty all of this would go away...
In my experience, oracle's enterprise edition database has minimal performance for anything but simple lookups too. All relational databases I have worked with slow down dramatically once you start moving too much business logic into your sql queries.
MySQL/isam sacrificed acid compliance for great performance on simple hardware, which turned out to be an acceptable tradeoff for a newly emerging workload. This, combined with the fact that it was backed by a company rather than a group of volunteers as with P
Re: (Score:2)
You obviously never used postgresql or you do some major fuckup that the optimizer wont do.
Re: (Score:3)
He's gotta cover those mortgage payments for Lanai somehow...
Sounds like a mistake. (Score:5, Insightful)
They offer things under two licenses: GPL and commercial. IMO, it is far more likely that some build script broke and failed to replace the copyright notice on the GPLed export than that Oracle has decided to try to take the man pages proprietary.... :-)
Re:Sounds like a mistake. (Score:5, Funny)
It's a tried and true practice of Commercial software to charge extra for documentation. I'm willing to bet this is completely intentional.
Re:Sounds like a mistake. (Score:5, Funny)
I generally assume incompetence over malice, except when I'm dealing with Oracle.
Re:Sounds like a mistake. (Score:5, Funny)
With Oracle, you can often safely assume both!
Re:Sounds like a mistake. (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly, every time I'm talking to a VP at Oracle support (Every level 2 support tech is a VP at oracle) all I can picture in my head is them looking like Cobra Commander.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Sounds like a mistake. (Score:5, Informative)
It is a mistake. Mod parent up! (Score:3)
No point in all these rants. It's indeed just a bug (for now).
(There are plenty of other good reasons to rant at Oracle)
Re:Sounds like a mistake. (Score:4, Funny)
Guess the worst, expect 10 times as worse, get 100 times as bad.
FTFY
This affects distributions (Score:5, Informative)
Most distributions include the documentation with any software packages distributed. Without a GPL or free software license on the documentation, the distributions must either:
(a) comply with the license,
(b) provide a third-party download (like Adobe with Flash), or
(c) stop including MySQL.
Given the existence of MariaDB, it might be simplest to stop including MySQL in the distribution.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Most likely the choice will be:
(d) write free documentation
Debian does this quite often. See: Debian with GFDL licensed documentation.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:This affects distributions (Score:5, Insightful)
(d) provide the old documentation, which didn't come with any such restrictions.
The Correct way to look at this situation, is that MySQL has died and is no longer being maintained by its owner. The last [GPLed] version was the last version.
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't most distros moved already to MariaDB?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Or they needed to wait until there was a stable MATE, given how Gnome 3 still is rather unsuitable for server use, including remote desktops, VMs and heterogeneous environments.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Gnome 3 Classic doesn't exist in Fedora versions prior to Fedora 19 either, so the argument stands.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Plenty of distributions are already ahead of you and have moved over to MariaDB anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
The distributions do periodically update to the latest versions of the software they distribute. Using 5.30 documentation on version 5.31 might work. However, that rapidly gets thin after a few years of updates.
Then again, this might be a quiet way for Oracle discontinue updates on MySQL, so that they can sell more copies of Oracle.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You may not be aware, but Oracle costs a TON of money. It's always worth a rep's time, because they're getting paid massive amounts of money to tell you how to do a LIMIT, OFFSET in Oracle. Forcing people over to Oracle from MySQL, for those gullible enough to do it, will mean some extra chump change for Oracle while simultaneously driving off anyone smart enough to go with a truly open alternative. No skin off their backs - Oracle has one client who is a Big Bank, and that's probably enough business from l
Re: (Score:3)
You may not be aware, but Oracle costs a TON of money. It's always worth a rep's time, because they're getting paid massive amounts of money to tell you how to do a LIMIT, OFFSET in Oracle. Forcing people over to Oracle from MySQL, for those gullible enough to do it, will mean some extra chump change for Oracle while simultaneously driving off anyone smart enough to go with a truly open alternative. No skin off their backs - Oracle has one client who is a Big Bank, and that's probably enough business from licensing to bankroll all the phone support for all of their products until the end of time.
(sorry to my previous mod ups - you guys were funny and insightful - I'm sure others will mod appropriately - lol @ FirstPostgreSQL)
Actually that was my point. If you are using MySQL and you are forced to move to another database platform (other than for outgrowing MySQL) Oracle is probably the last one you would look at due to licensing cost. And you would probably look at Oracle in that case if you were already an Oracle shop. Even then it might be better to move to PortgeSQL or even MS-SQL.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess I was saying that, in regards to the time of the reps, it's always worth their time.
Re: This affects distributions (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess I was saying that, in regards to the time of the reps, it's always worth their time.
Call up an Oracle rep (assuming you are not already an Oracle customer) asking for a quote on a 5 user base Oracle database license and see how long it takes him to get back to you.
Is this legal? (Score:2)
Wouldn't they need the approval of everyone who contributed to the GPL'd version in order to do this?
Re:Is this legal? (Score:5, Informative)
No, MySQL has always required copyright assignment for stuff to be included.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer is "Yes" and the long answer is that they already gave the permission or MySQL AB/Sun/Oracle wouldn't have accepted the contribution.
Re: (Score:2)
GP was answering the question in the body, not the question in the subject line.
"Yes" it's legal.
"No" they wouldn't need approval of everybody who contributed to the GPL version.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with you, but I think of it as "Yes, they need the approval of everybody who contributed to the GPL version, so they got that approval in advance in the form of a copyright assignment. Because the contributors assigned all their copyright rights to the owners of MySQL, the owners can make this change without needing any further permission from the contributors."
Re: (Score:2)
IMHO, it does seem like stealing from the people that gave their time for free to contribute to the software.
You cannot steal what already belongs to you. Even if it was a gift.
Just use Postgres (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Years ago I evaluated PostgreSQL and MySQL for a project and decided to go with PostgreSQL. One reason was that it seemed more solid, which was more important than speed. The other was the funky way that MySQL was being developed - by a single, for-profit company - even though it was formally GPL licensed. Yes, MySQL would probably have worked fine, but the current issues with forking and all that mean that I would not trust it today. The community behind the project is more important than whatever lice
Re:Just use MariaDB ( or Postgres ) (Score:5, Interesting)
It may be that this license change is just a build oops, or it may be that Oracle is breaking it's agreement with the EU to keep mysql stable, supported and free. In any case, this does strengthen the case for MariaDB for those organizations are still on the fence about switching over.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Tried it. Didn't work. Because I rely on iterative development, I use "make-it-work" statements a lot and have one master SQL script that I can use to both create a new database or upgrade an existing one (see Evolving A Database With MySQL [howtoforge.com]). This requires a lot of "IF NOT EXISTS" clauses or "ON CONFLICT" clauses. MySQL features quite a few of them, and I could not find most of them in Postgres. Even the SQL standard MERGE command is not supported.
Also, with the zillion ways of logging in to a database, I h
No secret where this is going (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that totally makes sense out of why Oracle keep hiring more MySQL devs and putting out new MySQL releases like those MySQL 5.7 previews or that MySQL Cluster 7.3 that had a GA release just yesterday.
Thanks for clearing that up!
They're making friends like nobody's business! (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's look at what Oracle is doing. I'll start the list of moves that appear to be intended to alienate the community around the very software they're promoting and cause the Open Source community to create viable forks that end up absconding with the product and its market. You guys contribute additional examples...
IBM isn't known for dumb moves, but partnering with Oracle on this sure is one.
Bruce
Re: (Score:2)
What continuously baffles me is that they haven't managed to screw up VirtualBox yet (that I know of, I could be misinformed). Is the project just below the radar?
Bill
Re: (Score:2)
But they have messed up VirtualBox: 4.0 was basically 'out the door' when Oracle bought them (it came out something like a month or two later, a rushed release IIRC), and VirtualBox hasn't seen any marked improvements since. It's basically in a 'maintenance' freeze, from what I can see, and long-run bugs which have been around for quite a while are still there. What's more, more seem to be getting introduced (more instability lately, I think).
Re:They're making friends like nobody's business! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your memory of IBM differs from my own.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't say I've had that much to do with them. HP, on the other hand, I could rant about for a while...
Re: (Score:3)
Wasn't acquiring MySQL probably intended to eliminate a large portion of the competition anyway?
If I remember correctly, Sun acquired MySQL prior to being acquired by Oracle, and Oracle's reasons for buying Sun had nothing to do with MySQL. Somebody correct me if I'm mistaken!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't hand over copyright (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can always fork GPL code, the GPL license is not revocable by anyone.
Re: (Score:3)
I'd argue that a license like the GPL or BSD license can't be executory contracts because there is no ongoing obligation on the licensor's part. The only obligation is on the licensee's part, to continue to comply with the terms of the license grant. The bankrupt party can cease offering the license, but as their obligations have been completely fulfilled already the license shouldn't be eligible for cancellation.
The ability to cancel contracts in bankruptcy is intended to deal with things like a bankrupt p
Re: (Score:2)
This is why you shouldn't work on free software that requires you to hand over your copyright. This includes GNU software as well.
Even where code remains GPL, you have to be a bit careful about selling code. A case in point was Michael Sweet's selling the source for CUPS to Apple. Sure it's still GPL, but the exceptions to link against Apple software have (in some cases) set the clock back for users of Linux and other Unices.
I had always thought CUPS stood for Common Unix Printing System. I was wrong. Apparently it doesn't stand for anything any more. There was a time when if any printer you bought worked from a Mac, you would be ab
Great community management there! (Score:2)
Seriously, this is just about perfect proof that Oracle isn't even paying attention to the MySQL community. If they were paying even the smallest iota of attention, they would have realized that changing the license terms on *anything* would be a big deal to the users, who are already a bit hesitant. At the very least, they would have messaged it better - told everyone up-front what they were doing, and *why*. Hell, maybe they actually have a good reason.
But now, they've lost spin control on their own actio
Have we not seen the writing on the wall? (Score:2)
PostgreSQL
Everyone knows its better and more free. The MySQL lineage needs to die.
Did anything change? Sounds like typical legal (Score:2)
Legal speak for a generic copyrite disclaimer which references a general agreement to me. What is the big deal? Sure it could say GPL, but this seems like a lawyer pleasing way to say "go read the related agreement" to me. The agreement can still be GPL but now the files just say you are restricted to the agreement.
GPL restricts use and copyrite is what gives GPL power.
NOTE: I purposely spell it copyrite.
Enough already! (Score:5, Insightful)
You've been kicking this one back and forth for a decade or more! If you knuckleheads would have used BSD licensed PostgreSQL from the git-go instead of MySQL's crazy now-you-see-me-now-you-don't license you would have freed up so much time and intellectual horsepower that you'd have your fucking flying cars by now.
Slashdot. It's like herding cats, except cats are cleaner.
MariaDB (Score:2)
Exactly what happened to open office. We got a working fork, that is what everyone is going to use.
Re:Frist post (Score:4, Funny)
Dontcha mean FirstPostgre?
Re:good (Score:5, Informative)
Software is. This manpage change appears to be implying that the corresponding software is covered by some license other than some variant of the GPL as the given restrictions are incompatible with that license.
Re:good (Score:5, Informative)
How so? If they own the copyright, they are free to relicense a piece of data (and more importantly any new versions of it) under any terms they wish.
This doesn't change the fact that the copy you downloaded previously under the GPL stays that way, and you can redistribute it indefinitely.
captcha: darlings
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If outsiders contributed to it they are no longer the sole copyright owners.
Re:good (Score:5, Informative)
MySQL was always dual licensed, they always required copyright to be assigned to them for contributions so they could monetize it on the side.
Re:good (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry to be pedantic, but replace "a piece of data" with "a work of authorship". If there isn't the creative work of a human being involved, it's not copyrightable. And then we get to this:
And that means that even when the hand of man is involved, a lot of things are still not copyrightable.
Re:good (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not possible for the copyright holder to commit a license violation.
User trust violation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:User trust violation (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:User trust WHOOSH (Score:4, Funny)
o
/|\ <- You
/ \
Whoosh!
On a related note, why does Giorgio Tsoukalos have such wild and crazy hair?!
Re:User trust violation (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone saw the writing on the wall and switched to MariaDB a few months ago. In for a repeat show?
This is the great thing about free software, once its free, you have a hard time closing it back up. Someone just forks the last free version and keeps going, and you get ignored unless you can contribute something the Free versions don't, which is unlikely.
Re: (Score:3)
They might be held to it under the principle of estoppel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel [wikipedia.org] in particular, the Overview section, example 2.
However, the code/doc could probably be forked from the prior version. I believe that would be similar to the LibreOffice fork of OpenOffice (nee StarOffice). It's an open question whether that's worth it vs. putting the effort into MariaDB.
Personally, I don't use full featured databases other than the occasional hookup to an sqlite one. However, based on the
Re: (Score:2)
That would only apply to stuff already distributed under GPL. If you have a copy distributed under GPL then you are free to distribute, etc. However, there is nothing that could force the copyright holder to continue releasing under the GPL.
Being forced to release under GPL would be like the creditor being forced to forgive future debts just because he forgave a previous debt.
Re:good (Score:5, Interesting)
In general, perhaps.
However, when Oracle took over Sun, it made public statements to the effect that the open version would remain that. If users/consumers took actions [to stay with mysql vs. bolting to Postgres], based on these statements, they may have suffered [actionable] harm.
Reading further down the [wiki] page, under the "reliance-based estoppels" section, Oracle's statements seem to be a "promissory estoppel".
Re: (Score:3)
In theory, I think you are right (IANAL). In practice, however, the mere existence of MariaDB means that it would be close to impossible to prove any actual harm. Oracle can always claim that you are free to switch to MariaDB, and you will have a hard time proving that is difficult to do.
Shachar
Re:good (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think the existence of MariaDB lets Oracle off the hook for a couple of reasons:
MariaDB doesn't change the fact that Oracle is reneging on its [implied] promises.
The harm is real. If a developer/company continues development on mysql (e.g. spends real money) continuing with mysql, based upon the assurances, vs. pulling the plug on all such devel activity immediately [when Oracle first acquired Sun].
In absence of the Oracle roadmap, the other company's choice might have been to spend that [wasted] capital on doing a Postgres port right away. Not only money wasted, but time as well, and business decisions about what markets to stay in/get out of. All of these could affect a company's competitiveness, market share, and profitability. Hence the harm.
If Oracle had said at time of acquisition that mysql was being closed [made no public promises to the contrary], there would be nothing to litigate about. Others are correct about being able to change licensing in general.
But, if Oracle had said that then [people were plenty steamed up], there would have been an immediate code fork [ala LibreOffice] or mass migration to Postgres [IIRC, MariaDB didn't exist then]. So, if Oracle had this latest action in mind all along [after the brouhaha dies down], then they seem truly duplicitous [and vulnerable in a court of law].
Re: (Score:2)
In practice (and if you're minded to sue), you could actually switch to MariaDB and carefully document the "effort" in terms of costs. Then you have a monetary value.
Now IANAL too, and I don't know the chances of success in court. But if you need a number of dollars, there are ways to get it. It may even be not so small, if you need to do a rollout in a major company.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: good (Score:3, Insightful)
If you hold the copyright, you can choose to license it however you want. What is untested in court is if a license change can retroactively apply to a fork.
Re: (Score:2)
This all may be moot if the shift is away from MySQL to other competing products, even if those products have GPL MySQL code in them.
It's my belief that Oracle acquired Sun to get a full-stack of Oracle DB from hardware and storage through OS and enough Java and other code to stick it to their competitors. MySQL unlikely generates more than services revenue, rather than the core set of apps based on Oracle's cash cow db and enterprise business line of applications.
Apps and integration and services is the oi
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
So its nothing to get your panties in a twist over guys, you can decide to be a dumbass and trust old Monty again (seriously guys look at the MariaDB license again, old Monty has it set up so all the code belongs to him, no reason he can't sell it out from under you again) or you can go to one of the other SQL variants or hell, if you want you and some other devs can take the last GPL version of MySQL and fork it and make something better. Make it belong to the actual community so it can't be sold and get behind that like you did with Libre office, why not do that? But this is a tempest in a teapot, who cares, you have options galore.
Bingo. Give this man a cigar.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hyperbole aside, I have to acknowledge the gripes you have. Yes, the GPL is a funny license when it comes down to it.
IANAL, but my understanding is that anything that Sun, and by acquisition Oracle, contributed to the MySQL code can be changed to non-free licenses for newer editions. Obviously you can't say "That release from two years ago is no longer freely available." Anything in the project that is GPL code needs to have the source freely (or at least easily) accessible. So, any community contributi
Re: good (Score:2, Insightful)
(Bloody hell, it appears I've fat-fingered the post button... with no preview, looks like this "tablet" version of /. ain't all it's cracked up to be.)
What you've missed is that MySQL contributors have always been required to assign copyright over, so that the current owner of MySQL is able to retain this control. If you retain copyright over your contributions, yeah, they need your permission to de-GPL the whole shebang, but that doesn't apply here.
Re: (Score:2)
Assigned (Score:5, Informative)
You can't steal my copyright or that of my friends who wrote them.
Ellison can't steal it, but if this comment [slashdot.org] is to be trusted, you already signed it away.
Re: (Score:2)
or not matter how many times you agreed to forfeit your copyright? dumbass.
Software foundations (Score:2)
Perhaps a GGPL, greater GPL, should also be written up as a guarantee that it will never be closed.
That's called donating copyright in a program to a not-for-profit foundation that has the free software paradigm written into its charter. Examples of such foundations include Free Software Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and KDE Free Qt Foundation [kde.org].
Re: (Score:2)
That's called donating copyright in a program to a not-for-profit foundation that has the free software paradigm written into its charter.
That's still weak.
A non-profit's charter can evolve. Consider if the FSF merges with a different organization with a different charter; like the often more corporate-friendly Open Source Initiative.
Would be nice if such a guarantee could be written into the license itself.
Re: (Score:2)
Consider if the FSF merges with a different organization with a different charter; like the often more corporate-friendly Open Source Initiative.
I don't see how a merger between FSF and OSI would pose a problem. The Open Source Definition [opensource.org] published by Open Source Initiative is worded nearly identically to the Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org] on which it was based, and each of the OSD's conditions maps to one of the FSF's four freedoms [gnu.org].
Would be nice if such a guarantee could be written into the license itself.
I agree. But given how some countries appear not to recognize a dedication of a work to the public domain as irrevocable, charters are the best we have.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter how strict the GPL conditions are, they have no effect on the copyright owner, who is not bound by it.
Re: (Score:2)
That works is the authors retain their copyright. "Contributors" to TheirSQL assign copyrights of contributions to, now, Oracle, then Sun, and before that MySQL AB.