MySQL Ends Enterprise Server Source Tarballs 413
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.
In related news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In related news (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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I've worked on a fair few projects using MySQL, and I've never used anything but the community version. This raises in me no sense of indignation.
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(can I link to Wikipedia for this and not get flamed? The info here really is quite accurate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_SQL_Server [wikipedia.org]
Re:In related news (Score:5, Insightful)
I propose calling it OurSQL.
Re:In related news (Score:4, Informative)
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!
Say what? (Score:2, Interesting)
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:Say what? (Score:5, Informative)
The title does not accurately reflect the summary or the real state of affairs. It is sensationalist in the extreme.
Re:Say what? (Score:5, Funny)
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MySQL Bugs Community Edition Users
Releasing bugs with the community edition and fixing them for the enterprise edition doesn't say much for MySQL technically, or ethically, take your pick.
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Re:In related news (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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.
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Re:Account Hacked !! (Score:5, Funny)
"MYND YOV MOOSE BITES KAN BE PRETTI NASTI"
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Hmm.. First Bittorrent (Score:2)
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According to the summary anyway, it will still be legal to distribute. So it won't end up as a torrent.
Whatever THEY want (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
It's like getting divorced and your ex gets only the second floor and the garage.
Re:not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Ooh, look at ME! (Score:2, Funny)
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as someone who uses PostgreSQL, i hope not.
Firebird (Score:3, Informative)
Cha-Ching (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cha-Ching (Score:5, Informative)
Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheap web hosting, I'm looking at you...
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Can we all just switch to Postgres now?
I hope so. Though Postgres needs serious work in the n00b friendly area.
Cheap web hosting, I'm looking at you...
TronicTech [tronictech.com]. They offer Postgres, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, PHP, Perl, Python, ssh, MailMan, subdomains/multiple host names (each can have different content), etc with plans starting at $5.95/mo. I've been using the $5.95/mo plan for about two years now and have been very happy with it.
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The only thing is that there are a few web apps that have MySQL support, but not Postgres - I believe vBulletin is one, but I don't know for sure. An engine is an engine. Installation is easy - in fact, compiling Postgres from source is much easier than MySQL.
Frankly, I don't know why I haven't made the switch for al
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Funny)
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There are many options available to you with PostgreSQL. Either,
* use the next largest data type (8 bytes) - cheap and fast solution, or
* add support for native unsigned ints - labour intensive solution ($$$). Just use the code for native signed ints and add unsigned support. Should not be too difficult!, or
* use another DB like D
The source hasn't gone anywhere. (Score:4, Informative)
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The real purpose of their move was to try to create the perception that their paid offering has more value than their free version to business people. Meaning, if I
FUD about less profitable product from same ... (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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]
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Re:Rock solid... Far from it unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
They need a name change (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They need a name change (Score:5, Funny)
Since it's currently in a state after being MySQL, I propose we confuse everybody by calling it PostMySQL.
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Or more descriptively, NotSQL? That one's almost a Godwin.
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and GIMP is not offensive enough, try showing how you discovered that the network needed redesign because you used a program called Etherape to map it for the PHB's. they for some reason see RAPE in it instead of APE.
Problem is 90% of all forks die unless the fork is created by a large portion of the original devs or supporting devs.
Official PostgreSQL fanboi thread here :-) (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, it's legal (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes, it's legal (Score:4, Informative)
This is no big deal. (Score:5, Informative)
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
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Re:This is no big deal. (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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
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Eivind.
Makes me glad that RubyForge... (Score:2)
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I smell a fork coming soon. (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
Community to MySQL (Score:2)
Really, it's that simple when you have GPL software.
what I wonder is if they are using .... (Score:2)
The GPL was intended to remove such abuses. The GPL v3 is intended to do the same thing but in consideration of the fraud of software patents. But the point is clear, the GPL in general is to prevent abuses.
On the slip side, there is nothing preventing someone who has access to the enterprise version from maki
Reconsidering my Enterprise Order (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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=05/09/04/17302
Wasnt this predicted? (Score:4, Insightful)
PostgreSQL is still free and more powerful anyway so no great loss.
It's all in the in the marketing (Score:5, Interesting)
Enterprise vs. Community (Score:3, Informative)
And we're not the only ones doing so. MySQL had really better re-think the whole thing, whats the point of offering Enterprise when 90% of shops are going to go with the free product.
The last thing you want to hear about a DBMS (Score:3, Insightful)
This, among other reasons, is why we switched to Postgresql some years ago. MySQL was (is?) not even ANSI SQL compliant, at least when we were struggling with it.
A good reason to use Postgresql (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think many places would switch to Postgresql, since the administration side is more complex and therefore more costly, but I can see shops weighing the pros and cons of switching to postgresql, since that DB has an excellent reputation.
Been a while coming... (Score:3, Insightful)
Postgres is a fantastic project. It's very solid, can handle huge transaction/request loads, has concurrent locking etc, from memory supports a large number of different datatypes, and is also very configurable. Even better, it's under what is my own favourite license, the BSD license...so you can do pretty much whatever you want with it.
MySQL will probably continue to have its' place, with people who need the things they're charging for, (presumably support options etc) and I wish the project well.
However, for people like me who don't have a lot of money, MySQL ceased being an entirely legally safe option a while ago.
Yeah, real bad. (Score:2)
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Yes if those are your poster boys for Open Source = business making money I think it says quite a bit.
Let's compare this to companies that either sell software only or software as a service with no sources.
Google, Yahoo, Symantec, Microsoft, Amazon, SAP, Oracle, and so on. These companies are BILLION dollar companies, and IBM while a billion dollar company is more hardware and services. If Redhat, and Suse after a decade are not even reaching the billion dollar mark. And IBM, we
In addition, have you RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In addition, have you RTFA? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In addition, have you RTFA? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Wait a second.... (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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AFAIK the IP holder retains the rights to whom it considers "customers" therefor decides whom may access the source based on who has legal rights to the product. Transgaming, RedHat, MySQL, et al.
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Well, it appears they are already selling the Enterprise Server. And according to the article summary, they're still making it available to customers who purchase the binaries. As such, they are completely above board in terms
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As the copyright holder, they are completely above board in terms of the GPL. It doesn't apply to them.
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Copyright (Score:2)
This is a common misconception. You CAN sell GPL code. The GPL specifically allows it. The only thing you must do is provide the source code (in one way or another) and the only thing you can't do is include additional restrictions.
As the other posters have pointed out, the copyright owner has the right to dual license the software (offer the software under more than one license). The GPL is not law, but an open ended contract. It is permission to copy the code if
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Re:You've misread the terms (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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Then why on earth are we calling it open source?
Every time a product starts to get good, some greedy fugknuckle on the project decides to close the source. We've seen it again and again. Here are the ones the come to mind:
FICS - Free Internet Chess Server
DD-WRT - Firmware for Linksys router
CDDB - Distrubted CD catalogue system
BitTorrent - File transfer (on
Now MySQL
I'm sure others could add plenty more examples. Anyone who committed
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The point is I want to keep the good bits just for me but I don't care if other people use my stuff.
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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.
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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....
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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.
no they don't (Score:3, Funny)
hawk
And let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sod MySQL, SQLite is the future.
Re:And let me be the first to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Raven737,
I am sorry if we are losing the trust you have in us at MySQL AB.
We have a simple ambition of building a commercially successful business that is built on top of great GPL software. We have a community edition for those who are ready to spend time to save money, and a commercial edition (MySQL Enterprise) for those who are ready to spend money to save time. Both are GPL and live up to all requirements of that licence.
We continually finetune this model and make changes, and as doin