Goodbye MySQL, Hello MariaDB.

[Phrea]

http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2011/09/oracle-adding-close-source-extensions.html

http://mariadb.org/

[Lucradia]

Dammit Oracle. You just keep ruining my day.

[maever]

Sad to see Oracle's vision is truly only a classic corporate one.
No room for innovation just gotta milk out everything you got.

Hurray MariaDB

[Linux_junkie]

http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2011/09/oracle-adding-close-source-extensions.html

http://mariadb.org/

I've read this guys blog then read the mySQL page at Oracles website and can find no mention that part of mySQL is closed source. Where has the blogger got his info from?

[KiwiNZ]

I've read this guys blog then read the mySQL page at Oracles website and can find no mention that part of mySQL is closed source. Where has the blogger got his info from?

Given his background "Founder and original developer of MySQL" I think his article has credibility.

[SecretCode]

I believe he's referring to announcements by Oracle that new backup modules in MySQL will be closed source.

[prodigy_]

I believe he's referring to announcements by Oracle that new backup modules in MySQL will be closed source.

It's not about what exactly will be closed source there. It's about Oracle spitting in the face of the FOSS community. GPL needs to be modified to prohibit all kinds of such proprietary "additions".

[Phrea]

Given his background "Founder and original developer of MySQL" I think his article has credibility.

Yup.
Maybe this was some sort of strategy of his, to let him be bought out while the source was still open, and thinking: they might close it [Oracle especially], so I'm putting a part of the huge amount of money I got from them into further development of an Open Source MySQL, only under a new name?

Oracle will try and hopefully fail at this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish).

[prodigy_]

Oracle will try and hopefully fail at this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish).

No. They just can't forget their OpenOffice fiasco. The move is emotional and childish like their decision to give OOo to the ASF instead of TDF. They failed and now they are breaking their toys and trying to hurt the FOSS community as much as they can.

No matter how you put it, this is pure evil. Worse than Microsoft, worse than Apple. And the switch to MariaDB is long overdue for there's no reason for us to tolerate corporate bullies.

[Phrea]

No matter how you put it, this is pure evil.

Yea, it is.
I'm just hoping that the promises MariaDB makes are true. [for now, I don't think there's a reason to think it would not be true]

I can't use foul language here, but...: Welcome to the **** [I typed the asterisks myself there] dawn of the new internet and data accessibility. Where not only governments will have a **load of control [remember the 'kill switch'?], but also big companies who decide what you can and cannot read/access online.

[Roasted]

Sigh. Can't say I didn't see this one coming with the way Oracle handles business these days.

[KiwiNZ]

No matter how you put it, this is pure evil. Worse than Microsoft, worse than Apple. And the switch to MariaDB is long overdue for there's no reason for us to tolerate corporate bullies.

"evil" has nothing to do with it, it is just business.

[Phrea]

"evil" has nothing to do with it, it is just business.

You really think this is "just business"...?

[KiwiNZ]

You really think this is "just business"...?

Yes it is just business. Board rooms and CEO's really do not have an interest in emotion driven decision making, it is all to do with the ongoing business strategy to ensure their bottom line remains within the targets of the owners.
Time will tell if they are right or wrong, that is the risk they take, however they would have investigated before making any decision to mitigate any risk.

[Phrea]

Board rooms and CEO's really do not have an interest in emotion driven decision making, it is all to do with the ongoing business strategy to ensure their bottom line remains within the targets of the owners.

You have no idea how much that scares me...
This poop is unlike anything people/organizations like Tim Berners-Lee, W3C etc imagined. They are all advocates of open and free access to available data. Which includes the delivery of said data.

[Roasted]

"evil" has nothing to do with it, it is just business.

Oh. That's it. Just business! I feel so much better now.

[Phrea]

Oh. That's it. Just business! I feel so much better now.

Where's the upvote arrow?

[KiwiNZ]

You have no idea how much that scares me...
This poop is unlike anything people/organizations like Tim Berners-Lee, W3C etc imagined. They are all advocates of open and free access to available data. Which includes the delivery of said data.

Then Organizations can develop their own Open products, that is what true Software Freedom is. Oracle has the right to be closed if they so desire as are others free to be open if they desire. In the end market forces will decide.

[Roasted]

Then Organizations can develop their own Open products, that is what true Software Freedom is. Oracle has the right to be closed if they so desire as are others free to be open if they desire. In the end market forces will decide.

The disappointing thing about MySQL is it is NOT Oracle's original parent. It was not intended to be used in this demeanor. It's sad to see a company like Oracle who supposedly believes they are pro-open source advocates to be doing things like this.

They'll learn. Albeit, the hard way. Hell, I thought they wouldn't chance doing any other things like this after they already indirectly forced a fork of the ZFS file system as well as OpenSolaris.

[Phrea]

Then Organizations can develop their own Open products, that is what true Software Freedom is. Oracle has the right to be closed if they so desire as are others free to be open if they desire. In the end market forces will decide.

You have any idea what you are saying here?
You are in effect saying that it's ok for every part of the internet *belonging* to some organization and/or brand to use their own "open" products. This would make the internet as we know it completely useless with one browser.

[KiwiNZ]

You have any idea what you are saying here?
You are in effect saying that it's ok for every part of the internet *belonging* to some organization and/or brand to use their own "open" products. This would make the internet as we know it completely useless with one browser.


No

[SeijiSensei]

Now you know why I never adopted MySQL as a database server. I've been a happy PostgreSQL user for over a decade.

When I was first looking for a database to underpin dynamic web sites, there were three choices: msql, which was commercial, MySQL which had a restricted license, and PostgreSQL which was released under the BSD license. MySQL AB allowed non-commercial usage of its product, but that prohibited me from selling servers with MySQL installed. I adopted Postgres and never looked back.

When Oracle purchased MySQL, I was reassured I had made the correct decision those many years ago.

I've never understood why MySQL came to dominate the web hosting world. It was allegedly faster than its open-source competitors, but whatever performance advantages it might have had were not noticeable on the websites I designed. Postgres has had a big performance upgrade over the past few years, and now has a wide variety of powerful "enterprise" features to boot. I still can't see any reason for using MySQL unless you're stuck with some dicey third-party webapp that doesn't know how to use Postgres or the platform-independent database clients in PHP.

[Lucradia]

GPL needs to be modified to prohibit all kinds of such proprietary "additions".

GPL requires you to have the source opened to others, if I recall. Unless that was recently removed.

[Dr. C]

This is starting to look like a repeat of the OpenOffice.org / LibreOffice scenario.

[prodigy_]

it is just business.
No, it's not. They won't benefit from it just like they never benefited from trying to sell OOo. And they know perfectly well that it's a dead end. But they'll succeed at ******* off a lot of people though (myself included) because transition takes time and effort.


GPL requires you to have the source opened to others, if I recall. Unless that was recently removed.
Yeah, I know. But as you can see it's not enough to stop corporate trolling. Mixing GPL-ed code with proprietary code should be completely prohibited by the license: either go open source all the way or GTFO.

[Lucradia]

Yeah, I know. But as you can see it's not enough to stop corporate trolling. Mixing GPL-ed code with proprietary code should be completely prohibited by the license: either go open source all the way or GTFO.

Thinking the same thing about Android.

[jeju20]

Just read that mysql.com got hacked...

http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1853

[boydrice]

You have any idea what you are saying here?
You are in effect saying that it's ok for every part of the internet *belonging* to some organization and/or brand to use their own "open" products. This would make the internet as we know it completely useless with one browser.

Um do you have any idea what you are reading here? Where did you get that from what was written?

[jwbrase]

GPL needs to be modified to prohibit all kinds of such proprietary "additions".

It already does. The problem is that whoever holds copyright on the code can always relicense it (and, furthermore, is not required to abide by the license, as they aren't going to sue themselves). Apparently, the individual coders had signed the copyrights over to Sun. When Oracle bought out Sun, they inherited the rights to the code. So Oracle can now do whatever it wants with every project that Sun owned the copyrights to (including GPL ones).

The lesson here is, when contributing code to a FOSS project run by an organization (as opposed to an individual), to never assign copyrights to the organization running the project, at least not without insisting on a clause reverting copyrights to you if they get bought out or that nothing they release containing your code be released as part of a proprietary product without your permission (and checking with a lawyer to see if such a clause would be enforceable). If the project won't accept your code unless you assign copyrights to them, find another project. Otherwise, if the organization gets bought out, the organization that buys them can do anything they like with the code.

[Phrea]

No

Fair enough.
I got progressively more drunk the other night, but what we see is a problem none the less.

From what I've seen now is: Oracle got hold of MySQL, and closes it's source.
We have MariaDB to fall back to, so it seems. Will the internet fall back to MariaDB?

[KiwiNZ]

Fair enough.
I got progressively more drunk the other night, but what we see is a problem none the less.

From what I've seen now is: Oracle got hold of MySQL, and closes it's source.
We have MariaDB to fall back to, so it seems. Will the internet fall back to MariaDB?

The decisions that Oracle are making are with the rights to make. Are they good? time will tell. Personally I believe they are taking a risk, albeit calculated, there may well be a customer backlash from both the consumer and enterprise sectors.

[prodigy_]

Thinking the same thing about Android.
Android is different. While it's indeed an abomination, Google played nicely and honestly, contributing to upstream for some time. At some point their code was rejected and they decided to fork the whole kernel because they had different vision.

Forking is a valid (even if unfortunate) solution. It's not the same as buying a project and trashing it.

[Roasted]

The decisions that Oracle are making are with the rights to make. Are they good? time will tell. Personally I believe they are taking a risk, albeit calculated, there may well be a customer backlash from both the consumer and enterprise sectors.

Good points. However I think it's more than an assumed guess that they will receive backlash over something like this. I think the OpenOffice/LibreOffice thing would have just been a stepping stone compared to what they may see from MySQL being in the crossfire.

[business_user]

The company I work for has been using a mixture of PostGRES and MySQL on a fleet of Ubuntu & Freebsd servers. Both databases are very similar in many respects. We're waiting to see what happens with MySQL before we make a decision on the future. In a worst case scenario where MySQL dies we would probably just move everything over to PostGRES. MariaDB sounds interesing, but I think the original MySQL guys have already had their chance. PostGRES has been already been around for a while and seems to be ok. It makes sense for us to go with something that is well established and proven to work well.

I honestly don't think MySQL will be killed off as easily as OOO was, mainly because so many businesses are dependent on it, but it's something I'll be keeping an eye on.