

Oracle Makes Commitments to Customers, Developers and Users of MySQL - healsdata
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Oracle-Corporation-NASDAQ-ORCL-1090000.html

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wheels
I don't think it would be in Oracle's interest to do damage to MySQL. In the
past MySQL attempted to grow up into Oracle range and largely failed.
Likewise, nobody uses Oracle when they're throwing together the first many
dozen iterations on a web app. Where I see the opportunity is using MySQL as
part of their funnel to larger Oracle solutions by providing a smooth upgrade
path.

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abyssknight
This is an awesome rebuttal to what Monty posted over at: [http://monty-
says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.htm...](http://monty-
says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html)

I'm surprised to see a company as big as Oracle willing to play ball like
this, but I'm glad. MySQL is/was the gold standard for years.

~~~
lucumo
Probably good to note that Monty has added a response to his post:

"UPDATE: Oracle has made some public promises that only fixes this one issue
marked with ( * ).

NOTE: Their promise to storage engines vendors is not future safe as it's a
time-limited non-assertion (they promise to not sue for 5 years), but they
could still sue one for using a storage engine with old code after the 5
years. They limited the promise to the storage engine API but not to other
plugin API:s that almost every pluggable storage engine uses. They clarify
this, Oracle should change this to be a license exception for all plugins and
it should be valid perpetual with the released code. It's also unclear if this
non-assertion is valid if the vendor makes extension to the interfaces (which
most storage engines do)."

The item marked with ( * ) is "To release new MySQL versions in a regular and
timely manner."

~~~
luckydude
I feel for Monty in that his "baby" is now under the control of some other
entity.

A couple of observations:

a) All of MySQL is currently available under the GPL, so any _pure_ open
source business model can take that and fork it and have the big fun.

b) It seems like all of the concern is Monty wanting to wrestle back control
so he's assured of a non-"pure" open source business model (which MySQL used
to generate revenue in the past. Specifically, licensing MySQL under a
comercial, non-GPLed, license).

So what does this say about pure open source business models? Are they
impossible? Do you always have to have some part that is not open source or a
way to license it that way?

~~~
lucumo
_> a) All of MySQL is currently available under the GPL, so any pure open
source business model can take that and fork it and have the big fun._

While this isn't Monty's concern, it is mine. I think it's quite possible to
kill a GPL project. Not in a lawyery sense, but strictly by mismanagement.
Maintaining a project like MySQL seems a rather big undertaking. I doubt
anyone will take it if Oracle doesn't _completely_ abandon it. That's a lot of
leeway to just screw it up...

 _> b) It seems like all of the concern is Monty wanting to wrestle back
control so he's assured of a non-"pure" open source business model (which
MySQL used to generate revenue in the past. Specifically, licensing MySQL
under a comercial, non-GPLed, license)._

I'm generally not a fan of assigning someone an "evil" motive when other
explanations do. It seems Monty is mostly concerned with people that have
bought an enterprise license for MySQL, so they don't have to release their
own source code when distributing binaries. Forks don't help these people.

