MySQL: A threat to bigwigs? (CNN)

[Posted March 13, 2003 by ris]

CNN takes a look at MySQL. "MySQL is used in four million installations around the world, Mickos estimates. The product gets downloaded for free off the company's site about 30,000 times a day."

MySQL: A threat to bigwigs? (CNN)

Posted Mar 13, 2003 22:26 UTC (Thu) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link] (2 responses)

Quoting from the article:

Anybody can download the product for free and use it for whatever they want, but in so doing they become ethically obliged to share any modifications with the company.

There's two really big issues I have with this - two points where it's clear that author doesn't seem to understand what free and/or open source software is all about really.

First of all, the GPL (under which mysql is licensed) does not mean you have to share modifications with anyone, not even the original author (or company in this case): you only have to make modifications available under the GPL if you do make them available at all. There is nothing in the GPL that dictates that you have to publish your changes, though; every user is free to make modifications and keep them private, as long as he actually *does* keep them private.

Second, in the case where changes are actually being published, there is no "ethical" obligation to make the changes available under the GPL again (which I assume is what the author meant); rather, it's a legal issue. Works under the GPL are copyrighted just as much as anything else (in fact, that's what the GPL builds upon, after all), so just like there's more than an ethical obligation to not give away copies of your newly purchased copy of Oracle or Solaris (or whatever), there is more than an ethical obligation to not break the GPL, either, when you use software licensed under it.

MySQL: A threat to bigwigs? (CNN)

Posted Mar 14, 2003 11:20 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

There's two really big issues I have with this - two points where it's clear that author doesn't seem to understand what free and/or open source software is all about really.

I think the author does understand, which is why he used the word "ethically". If you use Free software, you are under a moral obligation to contribute back. Maybe he just didn't word himself well

Another thing you didn't mention, which muddies the water somewhat, is that MySQL is dual-licenced. If you publish your changes, and don't come to some LEGAL sharing arrangement with MySQL AB, then your changes won't get into the main-line source.

Cheers,
Wol

MySQL: A threat to bigwigs? (CNN)

Posted Mar 14, 2003 13:26 UTC (Fri) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link]

If you use Free software, you are under a moral obligation to contribute back.

That really depends on your personal moral compass. I'd agree, but there are plenty of people who's moral compass isn't tuned the same way who see no moral obligation to share modification to the code. That's why the GPL is a legal license, because the GNU folks know perfectly well that many people would not feel morally obligated to share their modifications. If, instead of the General Public License they had used some README with a moral argument about the moral necessity of sharing code, many companies and individuals would happily go about ignoring it because you're not legally required to be moral. Depending on the ethics of the population at large to compel them to Do The Right Thing is a Bad Idea.

I'm going with the original poster on this one. The author of the story flubbed it. Maybe he believes that it's a moral obligation, but the fact is that it's not set up that way. Saying "ethically" instead of "legally" is a big difference and gives entirely the wrong impression to people who don't understand the GPL.

I'll add one final point: Noting that the GPL is a legal document that depends on copyright law helps to refute the FUD that Free Software and Open Source folks scoff at copyright. Microsoft has tried to lump the GPL crowd in with the Napster types several times, and it's important to counter that idea. Holding the GPL up as a legal document as opposed to an ethical standard demonstrates that the Free Software crowd does, in fact, hold copyright to be important...we simply aren't looking for the same payoff that Microsoft and other proprietary software companies are looking for.

PostgreSQL

Posted Mar 14, 2003 22:53 UTC (Fri) by dannyyee (guest, #10147) [Link] (3 responses)

Surely an article that long should at least mention Postgresql...

PostgreSQL

Posted Mar 15, 2003 15:19 UTC (Sat) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link] (2 responses)

Why?

I get this all the time "you could have mentioned..."

If an author is doing a story on MySQL, that doesn't mean they're somehow obligated to mention every other free/open source database in the world. If they'd mentioned PostgreSQL, then someone would complain that they didn't mention Informix or this or that database.

PostgreSQL

Posted Mar 15, 2003 20:24 UTC (Sat) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link] (1 responses)

Why?

Because PostgreSQL is *the* closest comparable product. Surely there were opportunities to compare MySQL to its closest competitor in a few paragraphs. Perhaps a comment like:

"MySQL is often criticized for its lack of ACID features; especially by comparison to PostgreSQL's more 'heavyweight' MVCC (multi-view concurrency control) model. However, newer versions of MySQL provide ACID guarantees using the InnoDB storage engine"

... and perhaps a link to (and some update commentary on):

http://openacs.org/philosophy/why-not-mysql.html

PostgreSQL

Posted Mar 17, 2003 0:54 UTC (Mon) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link]

So... if I write an article on XYZ, I'm obligated to mention its competition? If I write an article about Coke, I'm obligated to mention Pepsi? That makes no sense. If the focus is on XYZ then it's a senseless detour to mention ABC's product unless it's supposed to be a comparison article: And this isn't a comparison article.

This was a quickie article profiling one product. The author wasn't doing a survey of Open Source databases or the entire database market - it was a profile of MySQL AB more than the technology itself. There's no good reason for the author to slip in a paragraph about a "competing" product in an article that's barely a full page.