The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 3, 2010 2:04 UTC (Sun) by sitaram (guest, #5959)
In reply to: The ongoing MySQL campaign by hingo
Parent article: The ongoing MySQL campaign

> 3) You seem to belong to the people who more or less think "who cares about proprietary software anyway", which is a valid opinion, but we on the

In my other life, I do care about proprietary software, so that is not a valid interpretation of what I think.

I'm saying that (1) people who have commercial licenses should have factored in that risk [of owner, and therefore terms/cost, changing] when they decided to go for MySQL [I would have...], and (2) please stop pretending this affects OSS users because it doesn't.

> If because of (2) it wouldn't be possible or attractive to use MySQL also for proprietary software, MySQL becomes a less interesting option also for open source software. This is because often organizations want to standardize on as few options as possible, so they would be reluctant to pick an option that even potentially couldn't serve all their needs.

How many organisations do you know that have both proprietary products and open source products? Offhand I can't think of any, and even if you name a few, they're the exception. You don't mount worldwide campaigns to influence the EC on the basis of exceptions and rare cases.

> currently is GPLv2 and therefore incompatible with GPLv3 software and only Sun/Oracle can fix that. In other words Oracle could severely limit MySQL usage also on the open source side.

This is about the only valid point in the whole deal, but I chose to ignore it in all my writing because Monty himself (in http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/10/importance-of-lice...) says that "This is a problem, but less severe than the problem of economics." I will continue to ignore it for now, except for saying that if that was *all* the petition had, I'd have been with you.

> But the EU can regulate the merger event, if it thinks that it would be harmful to competition overall.

Again, if you want to play this as "commercial interests currently depending on MySQL will be harmed", fine. But Monty keeps saying "open source is affected", which I certainly do not agree with.

> As for the open question, don't take this as any official response, but the answer has already been given above: 1) The primary concern was always the MySQL customers that use MySQL for proprietary SW,

not according to Monty, who has made this out to be a serious problem for open source and that he is trying to save the world for all of *us*.

> which is a significant part of the MySQL universe. (We have them to thank for funding most of the development work that is in MySQL

Circular reasoning, or confusing cause and effect. You used the GPL (and dual licensing) to force most of that revenue generation in the first place. The development model was closer to closed source than open source, so any 3rd party development would naturally gravitate that way. Now it wants to perpetuate itself.

Once again, nothing wrong with that, but please dont keep saying this affects the OSS world. That's the dishonest part, from my p.o.v.

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The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 3, 2010 20:12 UTC (Sun) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (8 responses)

Great, so we seem to more or less aligned on facts. Just one comment then:

How many organisations do you know that have both proprietary products and open source products? Offhand I can't think of any, and even if you name a few, they're the exception. You don't mount worldwide campaigns to influence the EC on the basis of exceptions and rare cases.

We seem to be thinking completely differently here. As I see it, a company producing both closed source and open source code is the rule, not the exception. MySQL Ab did it, Sun did it, you mentioned EnterpriseDB that does it... IBM, HP... But I wasn't even thinking of those, rather end users. In my experience, most enterprise data centers will be running: proprietary 3rd party software, open source software, in-house software. And they will prefer databases (such as by having company procurement policies) that can be used for all of those or as many of those as possible.

In summary, I don't see proprietary software and open source software inhabiting separate universes and used by separate people. If this was the case, then the LGPL wouldn't exist.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 1:27 UTC (Mon) by sitaram (guest, #5959) [Link] (7 responses)

> We seem to be thinking completely differently here. As I see it, a company producing both closed source and open source code is the rule, not the exception. MySQL Ab did it, Sun did it, you mentioned EnterpriseDB that does it... IBM, HP... But I wasn't even thinking of those, rather end users.

We *are* thinking of the same thing: end users.

Let me rephrase what I had said, (and I'm sorry that I wasn't clear enough earlier). I had said "How many organisations do you know that have both proprietary products and open source products?". Now s/have/distribute/ in that sentence.

End users do not distribute. And so they can do what they damn well please, even mix GPL v2 and v3 (gasp!) if they wish, for their in house development. For products they purchase, they'll buy support. For OSS products they just use without buying support, nothing changes anyway.

[As for IT/ITES companies like the names you mentioned or indeed my own employer -- in that business they'd better be able to deal with any popular piece of software that their customers might be using or want to use instead of trying to standardise.]

...but...

all this is moot. I should have just focused on this one point in your previous post and ignored everything else, because as far as I am concerned that is the crux. You said:

You're the first MPAB person who's said this so far, (AFAIK of course).

Go back to the top of the page and take a look at the abstract that Jon put up. If you don't see a major, major, disconnect between what you said above and that abstract, there really is nothing to discuss anymore.

If you do, you might want to tell your boss about it. I do not speak for anyone but myself but this is the basis for my feelings of outrage, even disgust, at what Monty is doing.

It also appears that melodrama, rhetoric, even hysteria ("help keep the internet free"? come on...!), have become his stock in trade. Normally I wouldn't take digs like this at people in a public forum, but in this case it's part of the real problem -- he's essentially rabble rousing because his main point is false, and patently so.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 4:53 UTC (Mon) by TRS-80 (guest, #1804) [Link]

> As for the open question, don't take this as any official response, but the answer has already been given above: 1) The primary concern was always the MySQL customers that use MySQL for proprietary SW,
You're the first MPAB person who's said this so far, (AFAIK of course).

Colin Charles (who now works for MPAB) said much the same thing when I challenged him about it two weeks ago, and my response was the same as yours - proprietory MySQL customers have nothing to do with open source.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 7:04 UTC (Mon) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (5 responses)

But if the vendors of 3rd party proprietary software cannot support MySQL anymore, then the end users cannot really choose MySQL to run it either, even if they of course legally can do what they want with GPL software in-house.

So for this reason, but also for other reasons (Oracle getting control of the MySQL organization and customers, regardless of licenses and business models) both me, Colin and many others still at MySQL/Sun fear that this very much will be the end of MySQL, including for those who use the GPL version. I don't mind that you don't agree, many others seem to do so. (And like I said, even your letter to the EC is helpful, thanks. We always wanted people to give their honest opinion, and not do like Oracle who more or less put words in their customers mouths, so I've heard.)

And don't worry about Monty, he won't be disturbed by your outrage or disgust - for better or worse. FWIW, I don't like this public debate either. This LWN thread is almost the only place on internet where on average people even understand what they are talking about. In a perfect world the EU would have decided the case based on its substance alone, and we wouldn't have needed to be concerned about public opinion.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 7:23 UTC (Mon) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link] (3 responses)

> But if the vendors of 3rd party proprietary software cannot support MySQL anymore, then the end users cannot really choose MySQL to run it either, even if they of course legally can do what they want with GPL software in-house.

1. So the issue is proprietary MySQL - please admit that, don't frame it as an "Open Source" issue.

2. Sure they can choose to run MySQL. They may have to find alternatives to the 3rd party software, but again, they chose to use proprietary software, they took the risk. Of course, the 3rd parties could choose to GPL / Open Source their products and provide support. Just because a business model used to work doesn't mean the government has to guarantee it will always work.

3. Why should Oracle give away the product? Assuming what you say is true (I disagree, but for arguments sake assume you're right), the standard antitrust action would be to sell the product. You're proposing Oracle give it away to (among others) you. Why? Why should they not be forced to sell it? I understand you can't afford it - that's your problem. Others may be able to. It could even be spun out as a new company. The only rationale so far for relicencing in a more lenient manner (BSD/Apache) is so MPAB can get into the old proprietary game at no cost. Why should the EU give you the business? Why should Oracle get no compensation for what they are giving away - esp seeing the compensation Monty got by selling it to Sun.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 8:22 UTC (Mon) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link] (2 responses)

1. Like I've said, I'm convinced that the threat is against MySQL as a whole.

2. Some people seem to think that it will actually be advantageous, if MySQL could only be used by GPL software and it would miraculously force everyone to GPL their software. (For instance, we could have a fully GPL'd telecom software stack!) Unfortunately, I don't think this is realistic. It would be great if it was though! If the world worked this way, we should immediately start by re-licensing all GNU libraries as GPL. See also Richard Stallman on this same topic.

3. Why don't people listen to what I'm saying? We always said that Oracle should sell MySQL to a suitable third party. (press release) Yes, this is the typical action that is taken in these kinds of situations. Since you ask, I could speculate that Oracle could have proposed some kind of license change to the EU, because then they could still keep MySQL. Oracle's problem in selling MySQL to someone else is that removing MySQL as a competitor is more worth to Oracle than what MySQL is worth in itself, so they don't want to sell it away. So if they could get MySQL by liberating the MySQL licensing a little bit, they might be interested, because then they would still take away MySQL/Sun as the competing business. (For instance, PostgreSQL's existence under BSD is not noticeable at all as a competitive threat to Oracle.) For the same reasons, I'm not sure if the EU would then accept such a solution, they would prefer divesting MySQL.

Btw, formally, the EU cannot ask for anything specific. It can only deny the merger as a whole, and it is up to Oracle to propose remedies if needed.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 17:44 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (1 responses)

Oracles problem in selling MySQL is that they won't get what the software is worth, nor what SUN paid for it. Under a forced sale scenario it's going to go a fire sale prices and I believe that that's Monty's hope, that they can come in and buy it back at fire sale prices then sell it again down the road for another billion to another major company.

MySQL is not a threat to Oracles business, it never has been and it likely never will be. MySQL is so far behind Oracles main product that it will be multiple decades before it could even have a chance of getting to Oracles current level. For that reason alone Oracle has no reason whatsoever to hamper, harm or kill mysql. It's going to fit perfectly into their low end product line that INNODB+ currently occupies.

Regardless, this sale is not a threat to FOSS software. Any argument to the contrary is just what's getting mine and others hackles up. Monty's and others framing this as an FOSS issue is nothing other than a fabrication at best and an outright lie at the worst. It's appalling to me that the EU merger review process has been so corrupted over a non-issue and the public campaign Monty is making in the name of FOSS when he doesn't give a damn about FOSS. (Pardon my language) His attack on Eben not being in touch with the GPL and other arguments do nothing but harm the community.

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 5, 2010 8:17 UTC (Tue) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

Hi Rahvin

Like before, I don't have a need to convince you to change your opinion. But for the benefit of our fellow readers, allow me to quickly share some statistics so everyone can form an informed opinion.

Oracles problem in selling MySQL is that they won't get what the software is worth, nor what SUN paid for it. Under a forced sale scenario it's going to go a fire sale prices and I believe that that's Monty's hope, that they can come in and buy it back at fire sale prices then sell it again down the road for another billion to another major company.

Given that MySQL continued to grow during the Sun period, you would expect its value to be more now, than back then. Sure, maybe Sun was desperate and overpaid and also the economy is down, but still. Monty got somewhere around 5% of the billion that Sun paid. Even if he used all his money (which would be a bad investment strategy), the reduction in MySQL's value would have to be 95% for your theory to work.

MySQL is not a threat to Oracles business, it never has been and it likely never will be. MySQL is so far behind Oracles main product that it will be multiple decades before it could even have a chance of getting to Oracles current level. For that reason alone Oracle has no reason whatsoever to hamper, harm or kill mysql. It's going to fit perfectly into their low end product line that INNODB+ currently occupies.

Customers that migrate from an all-Oracle data center to use MySQL find that typically it is feasible to migrate 60-80% of your apps. For the last 20% it would cost more than it saves, but then over time some of those apps get switched to new ones, at which point they can use MySQL too. So your comment is 20% right, because MySQL is only a threat to about 80% of Oracle's database business. Btw, your comment is similar in spirit to a famous quote about Linux that "it will not be big and professional" (like GNU).

Where can you buy INNODB+?

His attack on Eben not being in touch with the GPL and other arguments do nothing but harm the community.

I believe you confuse Monty with Florian Müller.

Monty and Eben are good friends and we all had a nice coffee in Brussels together. (Eben may not fully have understood how MySQL's business models work, and as a lawyer he was poorly informed about the technical architecture such as the client libraries being GPL, but that's another story. I'm sure that with better background info he wouldn't have any problem interpreting the GPL license itself.)

The ongoing MySQL campaign

Posted Jan 4, 2010 9:31 UTC (Mon) by sitaram (guest, #5959) [Link]

I think we lost track of the original point here, which was, loosely, "the same organisation distributing open source as well as proprietary applications". I still don't see that happening.

> And don't worry about Monty, he won't be disturbed by your outrage or disgust - for better or worse.

Why would I worry about Monty? I imagine you need pretty thick skin to mount a campaign based on false premises combined with melodramatics, and to tell an entire community that you're their saviour when it's not at all clear they need one.

My slightly apologetic tone in that post was for you, not for him, in case you were wondering. Thank you for being a reasoned debater.