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MySQL Ends Enterprise Server Source Tarballs

Posted by Zonk on Thu Aug 09, 2007 05:06 PM
from the new-tactic-in-open-sorcery dept.
Software Databases Programming Linux IT
vboulytchev writes "The folks at MySQL has quietly announced that it will no longer be distributing the MySQL Enterprise Server source as a tarball. It's been about a year since the split between the paid and free versions of the database project. The Enterprise Server code is still under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and as a result MySQL appears to be making it harder for non-customers to access the source code. 'One of the things that many users worry about is whether they're getting an inferior version of MySQL by using the Community version. Urlocker says that MySQL "wants to make sure the Community version is rock solid," but admitted that the company has introduced features into the Community edition of the software that "[weren't] as robust as we thought, and created some instabilities." Because of that, the company is revising its policies about when features go into the Community releases.'" Update: 08/10 04:56 GMT by CN :While it is slightly harder to get, the source isn't closed by any means, so I updated the title to reflect that.
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Submission: MySQL is closing off its source by vboulytchev (862494)
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  • In related news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:08PM (#20175689)
    MySQL announced plans for a new BitTorrent based distributed backend.

    • Re:In related news (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShieldW0lf (601553) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:19PM (#20175855) Journal
      Wow...

      The same guys who lied about the suitability of their code for various purposes from day one

      The same guys who maintained that ACID was unimportant until the very moment they had it

      The same guys who have been setting this up for years with their Project Mayo/DivX Networks style licensing/contribution scheme

      You mean they actually went ahead and tried to use shady shenanigans to force developers who have no need for anything from their organization whatsoever beyond a copy of the community developed codebase to pay for access to the codebase?

      Wow. What a surprise.

      I made a decision to give preference to PostgreSQL over MySQL in my developments... not because of the technical merits involved, but because of the repeatedly demonstrated lack of trustworthiness of the MySQL team.

      I didn't expect to see my decision validated in such a rapid and undeniable fashion though.

      Just goes to show... technical skill is no substitute for good character or lack thereof.

            • Re:In related news (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Daengbo (523424) <daengbo@noSpAm.gmail.com> on Thursday August 09 2007, @10:48PM (#20178591) Homepage Journal
              i think i see a fork coming along. still a 'community' version, but based on the supposedly more conservative enterprise codebase (whatever the last freely available gpl version is i suppose). either that or someone will take the current community version and strip it back to be a 'lean stable' version and build from there.

              I propose calling it OurSQL.

    • Re:In related news (Score:4, Informative)

      by utopianfiat (774016) <utopianfiat.gmail@com> on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:47PM (#20176241) Journal
      fuck you zonk!
      no, I've had enough of your bullshit! take this goddamn article down right fucking now and change the title you worthless fucking excuse for a yellow journalist! For fucksake you READ the goddamn article before you post it, I HOPE.
      Fucking immune from moderation troll-assed motherfucker, I will sacrifice my "excellent" karma to bring you down!

      • Re:In related news (Score:5, Informative)

        by wwahammy (765566) on Thursday August 09 2007, @08:57PM (#20177915)
        While the response is a bit... over the top, the sentiment is understandable. MySQL is not closing off its source. It's just choosing not to distribute the source code for one version of its product in one way. It doesn't violate the GPL in any way and if you still really want the source you can get it from their repository.

        Zonk's title isn't even remotely related to the reality of the situation. If I could mod him down, I sure would.

        • Re:In related news (Score:5, Insightful)

          by kripkenstein (913150) on Friday August 10 2007, @12:35AM (#20179217) Homepage

          MySQL is not closing off its source. It's just choosing not to distribute the source code for one version of its product in one way. It doesn't violate the GPL in any way and if you still really want the source you can get it from their repository.
          Thank you for that accurate summary of the situation.

          Thing is, many people don't understand the GPL. The GPL never said 'you must distribute your source code to everyone'... you can, for example, make private changes and never give them out. In fact, this is explicitly given as an example of an important freedom by Stallman, Moglen, etc. Similarly, you have the freedom to make changes and give them to only a few people; this is exactly what MySQL are doing. Now, the people that do receive the code are free to further distribute it, according to the GPL, and I am sure we will see the code in some manner (compare to CentOS). But MySQL are well within their legal (and moral) rights to have only part of their GPLed code available on their servers in tarball format for anonymous download.

          To attack MySQL about this is very unfair.

  • Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bluesman (104513) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:11PM (#20175737) Homepage
    Can we all just switch to Postgres now?

    Cheap web hosting, I'm looking at you...
  • http://mysql.bkbits.net/ [bkbits.net] is still there, and AFAIK it isn't going away anytime soon.
  • ... company is obviously designed to move people to buy the product that gives them more income.
    This sounds just like the FUD that microsoft guy made by "admitting" that XP has problems in the hopes that people will move to vista.
    I think it's best to simply ignore the marketing people. There are no "instabilities" in the stable community version above and beyond the normal cycle of bugs and bugfixes you see in any software.

  • Rock solid... Far from it unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:17PM (#20175813)
    MySQL versions 5.0.38 to 5.0.45 have had such major bugs that they have rendered themselves useless for a huge range of applications. Applications that use dates, or ones that expect the database to *NOT* insert random NULL values in a group by query.

    I mean, even the most basic test suite would have easily caught these.

    Here are just a few of the major ones:
    Bug #28336 [mysql.com]
    Bug #28936 [mysql.com]

      • Re:Rock solid... Far from it unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by linuxwrangler (582055) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:40PM (#20176151)
        PostgreSQL 8.2.4. :)

        Thank goodness I did my homework and selected PostgreSQL and not, as one consultant suggested, MySQL back when we selected the database for our application. I've never had it crash and on the few occasions where it was unceremoniously shutdown (accidental powerdown and such), it's always come right back up with no data loss. And it's just been getting better by leaps and bounds.

  • Official PostgreSQL fanboi thread here :-) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by adnonsense (826530) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:18PM (#20175829) Homepage Journal
    My take: while MySQL has improved technically in leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, stuff like this (or having its transactional backends bought out from under it by Oracle) makes it increasingly difficult for me to recommend it as a business proposition to my clients. Meanwhile PostgreSQL continues to get the job done for the majority of my projects; I have a network of professionals who support it competently; and having followed the project since 2001 or so, I'm confident it's not going anywhere but forwards.

  • Yes, it's legal (Score:4, Informative)

    by Carnildo (712617) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:19PM (#20175847) Homepage Journal
    Before anyone bitches about it, this is perfectly legal. The GPL only requires you to provide source code to people who you also provide the compiled software to. You just can't restrict what they in turn do with the source code, which is why most GPL developers make the source code available to everyone and their dog.

      • Re:Yes, it's legal (Score:4, Informative)

        by jeaton (44965) on Thursday August 09 2007, @06:23PM (#20176663)

        Scenario: Let's say company X takes some super-cool GPL code, modifies that code, but only offers that modified code to customers paying for the binaries. Of course, in order to get the privilege of paying for the binaries, you have to sign a contract commercially stating you won't ask for the code, and/or you won't distribute that code. Thus, Company X can now charge for modified GPL code, without breaking the terms of the GPL for not distributing their modified code back to the community at large, since the only folks getting the binaries are people they have binding commercial contracts with...
        This is explicity forbidden by the GPL, in section 6:

        You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.

  • This is no big deal. (Score:5, Informative)

    by bmo (77928) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:19PM (#20175865)
    It's right in keeping with the GPL. The GPL doesn't say "you have to give the source to all and sundry." No, they just have to give the source code to those they gave the binaries to, i.e., their paying customers.

    The work-around for the community is hinted at here:

    "Though MySQL AB will not be distributing the source tarball, Urlocker says that MySQL isn't going to try to stop distribution of Enterprise Server source by others. "If somebody wants to, that's fine. People can distribute it.... "

    Getting the source code as a tarball on a public server for everyone is an intellectual exercize for the reader.

    I read this as a "We're not going to be hosting for leeches. You want a public server, set your own up"

    --
    BMO

    • Re:This is no big deal. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Todd Knarr (15451) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:58PM (#20176387) Homepage

      Not technically correct. They can limit giving the source code to only their customers if and only if they provide the source code along with the binaries. If they provide the source code seperately, then the GPL requires them to offer the source code to any third party that asks for it for at least 3 years from their last binary distribution. This is because any party who receives the binary is entitled to the source even if they didn't get it directly from MySQL AB.

      • Re:This is no big deal. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by bmo (77928) on Thursday August 09 2007, @06:14PM (#20176569)
        "This is because any party who receives the binary is entitled to the source even if they didn't get it directly from MySQL AB."

        And you, Sir, are not entirely correct. I cannot bend over MySQL AB by giving people binaries of MySQL. If you get binaries from me, then *I* must offer the source code *not* MySQL. If MySQL AB no longer offers source to all comers, then it's *my* problem, not theirs.

        From GPL V2 (which is what MySQL is using currently)

        "b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,"

        If I'm distributing version 2 GPLed MySQL, that clause is talking to _me_ and not MySQL AB. The "c" clause gives me an out if I'm noncommercial and I can point to SourceForge or a public server offering MySQL source.

        --
        BMO

  • I smell a fork coming soon. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lumpy (12016) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:33PM (#20176063) Homepage
    Lots of OSS projects use Mysql. If they want to take their ball and go home, so bet it. we can take a tarball and create OurSQL.

    Come on people this is what OSS is all about. forking and starting a new project because the current project leaders became poopwads.

  • Two ways I can think of to go now... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erroneus (253617) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:37PM (#20176119) Homepage
    A MySQL fork: "OurSQL" or something like that

    or

    A general shift to PostgreSQL... seems a lot of people are favoring that route.

    I don't care which way it goes, the community will respond and MySQL will become irrelevant.

  • Reconsidering my Enterprise Order (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MattW (97290) <matt@ender.com> on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:51PM (#20176307) Homepage
    By discouraging people from getting and using the Enterprise version, I feel less and less safe deploying it myself. Less users = less chances to catch problems. Less code = less review = less security.

    I'm about to deploy 4 MySQL servers for some serious volume and was strongly considering buying into an enterprise package, largely on the strength of their monitoring tool, but now I'm seriously thinking it's time to try Postgres.

  • Inferior version (Score:3, Informative)

    by bl8n8r (649187) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:53PM (#20176345)
    "One of the things that many users worry about is whether they're getting an
    inferior version of MySQL by using the Community version."

    They already have SCO, how much more inferior can they get.
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/04/173022 5 [slashdot.org]

  • Wasnt this predicted? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:55PM (#20176357) Homepage Journal
    I dont think anyone is really suprised.

    PostgreSQL is still free and more powerful anyway so no great loss.

  • It's all in the in the marketing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by icepick72 (834363) on Thursday August 09 2007, @06:23PM (#20176669)
    It's interesting to see how the community often openly promotes and vehemently defends an "open" piece of software but if the software starts to "close" then all the problems start coming out and suddenly it's a piece of @#$! The robustness of software doesn't change with a philosophy. It's all the in marketing. I mean if MySql were still open then we'd see posts comparing it against Microsoft's software. Now for "some reason" they're equivalent in the garbage bin. I will remember this indeed.

    • Re:Wait a second.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Todd Knarr (15451) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:22PM (#20175919) Homepage

      If they provide the source code along with the binaries, the GPL considers that to have satisfied their obligations. After that, they're not obliged to give the source code to anybody else. Not even customers.

      Now, if they don't provide the source code with the binaries, if customers are obliged to get it separately from the binary package, then the obligation is to provide the source to anybody who asks for it, customer or not, and that obligation lasts for 3 years after the last binary was distributed. Note that if the binaries are available via download, offering the source for download at the same time and from the same page satisfies the GPL's requirement to provide source along with the binaries even if the customer doesn't actually download the source code at the time.

    • Re:Wait a second.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:23PM (#20175933)
      Yeah, those damn MySQL idiots are acting just like this crazy Emacs hippie back in the 80s... what was his name... Richard Stallman I think. Anyway, the greedy bugger only distributed the source to people who bought the software! Even though it was GPL'd! And the FSF did nothing!

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Alchemar (720449)
        They can not release their own code under the GPL and not release the source because the GPL itself is protected under copyright and trademark laws. By not releasing the source, then they are releasing under a different license but calling it GPL which dilutes the GPL trademark. They are free to distribute under the license of their choice, but they cannot change an existing license and call it the same thing. This would also be considered fraud, because the person receiving the binary would have a reaso

      • Re:You've misread the terms (Score:4, Informative)

        by penix1 (722987) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:44PM (#20176197) Homepage
        You are spot on with one problem....

        Code that was "contributed" doesn't belong to MySQL but to the individual authors. Unless they have something assigning the rights to MySQL (always a possibility since I don't use MySQL I wouldn't know) those copyrights still belong to the authors of that code. In short, they would still need the "official" OK in some form from the authors (ALL of them) of the code. That is why a license change is always something to be avoided where GPL is concerned.

        • Re:You've misread the terms (Score:5, Informative)

          by Decibel (5099) on Thursday August 09 2007, @06:08PM (#20176501) Journal
          MySQL requires code contributions to be re-assigned to MySQL AB, so AFAIK they actually own every last line of code. Which of course means that they are free to do anything they want, including close-source the whole thing.

    • Whatever THEY want (Score:5, Insightful)

      by El Lobo (994537) on Thursday August 09 2007, @05:59PM (#20176399)
      Whatever it is, they are in their perfect rights to do what they want with THEIR code.

      This is actually the tendence that worries me. These days many people (thankfully not everybody) think they have the RIGHT to get everything for free. One bitches because product X is not Open Source (Ohh what a crime!!!). The other bitches because X (which VERY GENEROUSLY was giving many years of hard work to people who don't even write a line of code) is taking their hard work back for Y reasons (yes, making a buck for many years of hard work is not a bad thing , you know)

      Another funny thing: I was talking to a man here at work. The man is a a rabious defender of OS. He wouldn't touch a non- OS program, he almost cried when MS made a deal with Novell, he screams how much he hates Photoshop and how great Gimp is (just because is OS)... And guess what? He develops a very good backup solution for databases and he takes good money for it. He was having some difficulties adding features. Knowing how good of an OS supporter he was I had the nerve to suggest to him to open the source of his program. ARE YOU FUCKING MAD?- he said. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD I WORK FOR THIS SHIT? AND I WOULD GIVE IT TO THE DOGS?....

      Moral of the story. If you work hard for your work and wnat to share , so be it. If you want to get your work back iand this is posible, just do it. You have the right. people will bitch, people will call you a shit, people will hate you... And yet, the majority of them won't share a shit either giving the oportunity.

      Making money is not a crime folks....

      • not quite (Score:5, Informative)

        by infonography (566403) on Thursday August 09 2007, @06:43PM (#20176847) Homepage
        The issue isn't that they are keeping what they made. They didn't make it all since they used stuff others had contributed under a certain condition. That being Open Source. The open source model is that you let others help you build the software. To close the source they would have to comb back through the contributions of other people over the years and take out all OS code that is what they didn't pay for in-house. Otherwise they would have to rewrite a whole new system from scratch and walk away from the MySQL code base as it stands.

        It's like getting divorced and your ex gets only the second floor and the garage.

        • Re:not quite (Score:4, Insightful)

          by jadavis (473492) on Thursday August 09 2007, @11:27PM (#20178811)
          To close the source they would have to comb back through the contributions of other people over the years and take out all OS code that is what they didn't pay for in-house.

          But MySQL AB owns the copyright on all the code, regardless of the contributor, correct? That means they can close the source, and they don't have to ask anyone or comb anything.
      • Not going to happen.

        According to the summary anyway, it will still be legal to distribute. So it won't end up as a torrent.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DerekLyons (302214)

      I wonder how many other projects will start pulling this -- get the world hooked on your product, and then close the source after you reach a critical mass of commercial users who are likely to pay versus those who would be prone to forking and taking over open development.

      I imagine this is the first of many. The advocates of Open Source for years have been pretending that they are on the side of the angels and immune to normal personal and business pressures. They're wrong.

    • Yep. Greed's a bitch.

      On a related note: great job guys. It looks like you took your cues from XFree86 -- I guess you were inspired by how well that worked out....

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by bladesjester (774793)
        MySQL.com have always tacked open source on as an afterthought.
        Their contributor agreement is effectively
        'thanks, your patch, copyright and patents belong to us now, but here's a free t-shirt for your trouble'.

        GNU basically requires the same thing of whatever you contribute to a GNU project.

          • Firebird (Score:3, Informative)

            by tepples (727027)

            Then again there's also Firebird, forgot whose codebase they used.
            Firebird [wikipedia.org] is the community continuation of Interbase. (Interestingly enough, the license for Firebird is based on the MPL, better known as the license for Firefox.)

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