« Pink Martini at the Oregon Zoo | Main | On Owning a Larrivée Guitar »
August 8, 2007
MySQL Takes Another Step (Away from Open Source)
In the ongoing effort to convert more users into paying customers, MySQL announced today that they are no longer making the source code tarball for their Enterprise server publicly available. You could see this coming from a million miles away.
Back in December 2006 I pondered on the changes with the MySQL database splitting into two offerings, the enterprise and community editions:
The source for the enterprise edition will still be available:we will continue to make all releases available over our BitKeeper tree and as source code tarballsSo it appears that those willing to compile from source will still have access to the enterprise edition. This is very important (in my eyes) to keep MySQL in the open source space. Without it MySQL AB becomes a commercial company that has an open source offering.
So where does that leave MySQL now, are they still an open source company, or have they crossed the line? Today's announcement has this point about GPL compliance:
The GPL requires us (like anybody else) to hand out the code to those whom we give the binaries, which in the case of MySQL Enterprise Server is just the customers.
So this may be true technically, but it doesn't seem to fit with the spirit of open source. When I think open source I think freely available source, not source I can get once I've paid for a license. Is this just a lack on my part of really understanding open source?
I'm sure that folks will point out that the announcement confirms that enterprise source is still available on Bitkeeper. If true, the source is technically still available, but it is now just a little more difficult to get the source and turn it into a working binary.
And I can only guess, but somewhere in the MySQL master plan there must be another blog post planned to ease folks along about closing off the enterprise source in Bitkeeper. After all, we should not expect to get the code for enterprise software like MySQL for free, it is for paying customers.
And then there's only one thing left in the plan to convert folks to paying customers...cripple or do away with the community edition. The marketing message (one example) already suggests that the community edition is experimental and not for production. This might deter some folks from using the freely available community edition, but there are definitely more serious measures that would ensure it won't be used in environments where a licensed version could be used. Perhaps it is the long release cycle, or letting the community server get unreliable with community contributions. Perhaps it is introducing limits in data storage or server capabilities. Am I just being paraniod? Why is it easy for me to imagine this coming down the road?
Why does this matter to me? I don't know. I admit I'm not anything special in the open source community. I've been using open source since the early days, but haven't made any earth-shattering contribution or raised a flag of commitment or dedication to open source. I suspect it has something to do with having used MySQL since it first appeared in the open source stack and having been an advocate of it for many years now. I'm still sorting out why these changes at MySQL seem to always touch a nerve. I have many friends who work at MySQL and respect them a great deal. They are bright folks who work hard. This is definitely not about them.
[I also realize that the enterprise licenses are not expensive when compared to other proprietary software vendors. But that's not the point is it, the relative cost of a license isn't a factor in whether software is open source or not.]
Posted by mike at August 8, 2007 8:34 AM
Hard Drive Recovery Group offers hard disk data recovery services for RAID, laptops and servers. Complete clean room and hard drive repair service.Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mike.kruckenberg.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1043
Comments
Whilst it's sad to see this happening never forget, that there are other significant Open Source DBs... PostgreSQL and Firebird. The FOSS community is like a rain forest, as a space is left by one application, there are many others reaching for the sunlight..... I realise that MySQL hasn't gone anywhere yet, and nor do I wish it to... just remember the great thing about this community is the number of options that are ready to spring from relative obscurity and run with the ball.
You say you've been using FOSS since the early days but contributed very little, but never under estimate your role in critical mass and advocacy, which are both vital in this community if *any* project is to gather momentum and become the size of MySQL, or any other app.
Just my 2 cents
Posted by: Tony at August 8, 2007 3:46 PM
How is this different from what Red Hat does with Fedora/Red Hat Enterprise Linux? You can't *easily* access the source for Red Hat Enterprise linux unless you do some digging on there website.
Red Hat also uses Fedora as a technical preview for features that will make there way into the Enterprise version. That sounds exactly like what MySQL is planning to do here.
Posted by: David J at August 8, 2007 4:34 PM
Mike, thanks for the comments!
I would argue that this change is fully in line with FOSS principles (and, yes, it has resemblances to what Red Hat does, as David J noted). The source is available and it is GPL.
I know I am biased, but I also happen to think that it is good for the community when MySQL AB has a well-functioning business model. With the money we make we can produce more GPL software.
MySQL Cluster is such an example - it had a very long history at Ericsson as high-end closed source software, was acquired by us and subsequently freed and put under the GPL licence. Now the whole world has access to a main-memory clustered database. We also happen to have a thriving business on MySQL Cluster, and that's in my mind the win-win of FOSS.
Make sense?
Marten
Posted by: Marten Mickos at August 8, 2007 7:43 PM
There's always www.dorsalsource.org
Posted by: Sheeri at August 8, 2007 8:25 PM
Marten,
if you compare fedora to mysql community edition than this implies IMVHO:
a) Release cycles are short and older releases are not supported or at least not very long. Not something one wants to use for its production db.
b) The code will have much less testing, as MySQL AB will use the community edition as testbed for new technologies. No, this does not mean that mysql community edition is the base for the next MySQL Enterprise release this means some parts might end in the enterprise release? As does Red Hat with Fedora. Again nothing for the production environment.
c) The argument that one can use the bitkeeper repo is valid but then you need someone like the centos crowd to bring longtime support to the table. Which is not easy. And CentOS is there quite a while now and the distributors are doing a really great job btw ;) But i do not know of any such group for mysql right now. Until such a group exists and has proved itself, hm, guess what :)
So, with all due respect this sounds to me like thinking about either buy commercial support or ditch mysql for longterm production db servers.
Is this the intend?
A little bit like the road Nessus has gone. Yeah i know you have to make money, it is your code and all. That is fine. But these points come to my mind when thinking about what you write.
Posted by: Anonymous at August 8, 2007 11:19 PM
THIS BITES.
I am done supporting open source. It's just a really long Beta. I am sure their is an evil scientist who cooked up this scheme. Let people support your product for its "OPEN-ness". It would have been more respectable if they had spun off the enterprise side. At least they would be respectable. they should really call this Payware. Cause no matter where you are in the process, you will always be paying.
Posted by: C at August 9, 2007 8:27 AM
Their source is always easy to get ahold of, and they're not taking it away... it's perfectly within their right to distribute their source however they want.
FOSS does not regulate how the code is released.
Posted by: Rick at August 9, 2007 8:07 PM
Mike, in response to your statement:
"So this may be true technically, but it doesn't seem to fit with the spirit of open source. When I think open source I think freely available source, not source I can get once I've paid for a license. Is this just a lack on my part of really understanding open source?"
I believe this is actually along the lines of the classic misunderstanding of open source. When you think "free", you should think "unencumbered", or "liberty" or "freedom", as in you have the freedom to do with the source code what you please within the terms of the GPL. Many people mistakenly interpret "free" to mean "gratis", or "no cost". While it is true that many (even most) open source projects are indeed gratis as well as unencumbered, it is the unencumbered nature that makes the project open source.
The 3rd paragraph of the GPL states this:
"When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price."
It is indeed possible and acceptable to have open source that is not gratis. In such an arrangement one must pay for the product. However you still then have access to the source code and the ability to make use of that source code. This is how MySQL Enterprise is licensed. It is fully compatible with GPL.
Posted by: Doug Fischer at August 17, 2007 4:17 PM
The GPL allows anyone to redistribute the source code. There is no way they can stop their paying customers from giving away the source code if they wish to do so. Like you said, it's now more of a hassle now to get the source, but the only way they could stop it would be to re-write any GPL code out...
Posted by: RandomAnom at September 11, 2007 8:41 PM
very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce
Posted by: Idetrorce at December 15, 2007 8:23 AM