IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition [LWN.net]

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 5:43 UTC (Fri) by gnufreex (guest, #70396)
In reply to: IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition by FlorianMueller
Parent article: Red Hat Responds to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Request for Guidance on Bilski

>But you don't have a point there because MySQL created its product and took the risk of market acceptance. Red Hat didn't do that for Linux.

That is just bullocks. Red Hat is one of biggest reasons for success of FLOSS in general. They and Cygnus put it on the map. I would even argue that MySQL owes lots of it's success to Red Hat. If MySQL wasn't in RHEL, it would be stillborn. So MySQL was exploiting Red Hat's distribution channels. Are they parasites?

>I said before that I'd view it differently if Red Hat had created Linux and then threw in Linux-based software as part of a distribution.

So your idea is that only Linus Torvadls and Richard Stallman should make money of off GNU/Linux, and everybody else are parasites? Because RMS created GNU and Torvalds jumpstarted Linux development...

That is really, really crazy. And it is really convenient when you call on some unnamed politicians and say that you have no opinion of your own, you only reporting what they are saying to you. You should educate those politicians because they are obviously clueless about FLOSS. It turned other way around, you are echoing their ignorant opinions. You are basically advocating for converting open source to proprietary software because you only know to think by proprietary terms.

It is also very hypocritical that you praise MySQL's business model but you cry foul because Oracle bought it. It is all funny game when you are shareholder and when GPL-fear-mongering business model of MySQL AB makes money to you, but when someone else buy it, you want to un-GPL it.

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IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 6:19 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (13 responses)

@gnufreex, this isn't the first website on which we have disagreements, but please note that this here isn't #boycottboy's website but instead a really good discussion community -- and adjust your behavior accordingly.

So MySQL was exploiting Red Hat's distribution channels. Are they parasites?

They benefited from it, but they developed MySQL and Red Hat distributed it because it was useful and at some point in strong demand. I can't see any particular action here that could be considered "parasitic". Note the word "action", which is different from just having permitted through an open source license that Red Hat redistributed it.

So your idea is that only Linus Torvadls and Richard Stallman should make money of off GNU/Linux, and everybody else are parasites?

Starting a project is usually just a part. The kind of innovative effort that politicians want to protect with intellectual property rights would include the entire product development and taking the overall risk of market acceptance.

It's great that Linux became a success without that protection. I repeat: it's great. But in connection with intellectual property rights, the question is whether this would work for the economy at large. Since IPRs affect the economy at large, this means that accomodating Red Hat is not an option.

You are basically advocating for converting open source to proprietary software because you only know to think by proprietary terms.

Wrong. I want both to compete with each other. But open source will have to compete under the framework of an intellectual property rights regime that must suit traditional innovation models, and open source must respect that system and find its place within it, such as by obtaining patent licenses where necessary (video codecs, unless VP8 is proven to really be unencumbered by third-party patents).

It is also very hypocritical that you praise MySQL's business model but you cry foul because Oracle bought it

I raised legitimate concerns, and if those concerns hadn't been worth investigating, the EU (plus "neutral" Switzerland) and China wouldn't have delayed their approval for five months beyond US DoJ approval nor would Russia have delayed its approval by almost another two months beyond EU/China and imposed formal remedies on Oracle. So I apparently had a point.

Those were competition concerns. They have nothing to do with the shareholders of a company making money. Competition/antitrust concerns are all about the public interest in effective, undistorted competition -- nothing else.

when GPL-fear-mongering business model of MySQL AB makes money to you, but when someone else buy it, you want to un-GPL it.

The lie that I wanted to "un-GPL" MySQL was originally propagated by GroklXX, a website that also said Oracle was going to be a great owner of Sun's patents until Oracle decided to use some of them against Google. I have debunked the outrageous un-GPL lie to the fullest extent. You can find my rebuttal here, including links to several documents I used during the merger control process and in which you can see I vigorously defended MySQL's GPL-based business model and advocated its continuation (but under a different owner than Oracle).

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:21 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (9 responses)

> I can't see any particular action here that could be considered "parasitic".

Your problem is that you pick some arbitrary point along the software development cycle and say that anything done before is not parasitic, while anything after it is.

You obviously do not see value in innovation that Red Hat Linux was when it was originally released. You think that just because they used "parts" to assemble their product, there is no innovation. This is even ignoring the fact that they in fact wrote RPM and a whole bunch of graphical admin tools very early on.

At the same time, MySQL, who also found certain "parts" in the environment and then wrote their DB engine are pure innovation. Well, they sure didn't write the kernel, the sockets, the libraries they used, compilers, the SQL language etc. And because you decided (completely arbitrarily, mind you) that their point of development and onward is called "innovation", that's OK then.

I will bet that in total Red Hat contribution to open source is both more important, more original and more voluminous then that of MySQL.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:27 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (8 responses)

No, Red Hat wasn't nearly as important as MySQL AB in terms of innovation. MySQL was a unique product meeting certain needs. By contrast, I remember very well using SUSE Linux (then spelled "SuSE") in the late 90's when my online gaming startup ran its servers on Linux. We never needed anything from Red Hat but were able to use Linux, while you can't use MySQL without using something from MySQL AB.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 9:04 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (7 responses)

> We never needed anything from Red Hat but were able to use Linux, while you can't use MySQL without using something from MySQL AB.

You are truly hilarious mate! Can't use MySQL without MySQL AB. ROFL! Who cares about them - it's SQL one wants.

You know, I was running my web business long time ago without any MySQL and I had SQL. It's called PostgreSQL. Or maybe I just dreamt it... Hilarious.

The saviours of the world: MySQL AB. Still laughing. Thanks!

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 9:08 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (6 responses)

You don't seem to recognize that MySQL built its code out of scratch. They sort of complied with the SQL standard, but SQL is a language, not a code base...

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 9:14 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (5 responses)

> but SQL is a language, not a code base...

Wow! Thanks for the education - really didn't know that - wink, wink. Oh, wait - there is this thing called SQL92. What is that? A spec? Not written by MySQL AB? What? NO INNOVATION?

Seriously, you crack me up man!

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 11:30 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (4 responses)

this is also the first time I've heard that MySQL complies with the SQL standard :-)

hint: in many ways it doesn't

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 12:59 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (3 responses)

Seriously for a second, many people chose MySQL in the olden days because it was fast and ACID was not an issue for the web. Fair enough, but claiming that an open source implementation of an SQL server was a revolution done by MySQL AB is a complete fantasy.

I learnt my open source SQL on Postgres, all before 2000. Never ran MySQL until I found myself in a job in 2004 where GBs had to be written into the DB fast and the product (not open source) supported MySQL.

So, any claims that MySQL was the only show in town is just nonsense. And that seems to be the main plank of his argument.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 17:58 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (2 responses)

So, any claims that MySQL was the only show in town is just nonsense. And that seems to be the main plank of his argument.

How much more absurd can those claims of things I said or implied get?

I never said MySQL was the only show in town. I never implied. On the contrary, I'm well aware of PostgreSQL. My own online gaming startup used it in the late 1990s. I also mentioned it in my position paper on MySQL's acquisition by Oracle and discussed it throughout the merger control process.

How can someone arrive at such an unbelievable conclusion? It's unfathomable. It calls into question someone's good-faith intention to discuss the issues on a reasonable basis.

What I said is that MySQL AB (the company, including the predecessor whose assets it acquired) developed MySQL, so someone wanting to use MySQL needed something developed by MySQL AB, while someone using Linux back at the time we used SuSE didn't need anything from Red Hat.

I repeat, for the few here who are reading-impaired and simply type before they read and think: MySQL AB was needed for MySQL. Not for SQL as a whole. That one predates MySQL AB, obviously.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 23:08 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Wow, you have outdone even yourself now. The big innovators at MySQL AB invented something that already existed!

PS. You know, I am actually being unfair to all those hard working folks that made MySQL an open source success. My hat off to them. Your arguments regarding this, however, are complete and utter nonsense. I am more then willing to agree with you when you present reasonable points of view. This doesn't qualify.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 2, 2010 6:06 UTC (Sat) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

> What I said is that MySQL AB (the company, including the predecessor whose assets it acquired) developed MySQL, so someone wanting to use MySQL needed something developed by MySQL AB, while someone using Linux back at the time we used SuSE didn't need anything from Red Hat.

Yeah, you argument is without meaning. I can equally well argue this:

Someone wanting to run an open source SQL server didn't need anything from MySQL AB. Someone wanting to run Red Hat Linux had to get stuff from Red Hat.

These statements, just like yours, mean almost nothing. It's like saying that you need to go to Ford dealership if you want to buy a new Ford. Well, yeah, thanks Captain Obvious!

So, I can only conclude that you must think that somehow MySQL had some great innovation or invention that nobody else did. Well, it was just another implementation of an open source SQL server. And because web boomed and people needed some particular features of their SQL server, more of them chose MySQL than PostgreSQL. I already acknowledged that. It is a sign of success, of course, but not a sign of some revolutionary innovation that needs its own special monopoly to be successful.

Equally, Red Hat Linux was just another implementation of a Linux distribution (or should I say open source stack). Not Linux - distribution. It did particularly well because of particular features it had, as compared to other distros.

So, pretty similar stories at the beginning, really. After that, and because Red Hat decided to take the whole thing really seriously and to a whole new level, they started offering excellent support and expertise, provided world class certification program, which further strengthened their brand. And they succeeded beyond anything MySQL AB managed to do. Along the way, they innovated far more than MySQL AB ever did.

Without putting MySQL AB down for a second (as I said, hat off to hard working folks there), Red Hat are an innovative open source company. And completely dedicated to releasing everything they make as open source.

Your diatribe about some parasitic business model or some such sounds like a whole lot of sour grapes to me.

And this is even without addressing the nebulous claims that people should pay more for the same stuff, because some programmer somewhere may lose their job.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:32 UTC (Fri) by gnufreex (guest, #70396) [Link] (2 responses)

You are one who needs to adjust behavior because you are one who is trolling and bombarding people with decade-old Microsoftian arguments that have been refuted countless times over the years.

You conveniently disabled comments on your splog, and you are now spamming and CCing all over the internet. You link to your splog so people argue with you here. If you really want a debate, why don't you enable comments on your splog? You don't because you are a troll. And you use your splog as your cave. Allowing someone to challenge your reasoning right in front of your cave... that wouldn't fit in your spam tactics. You want your spam to be discussed on other sites. I guess you didn't got banned from Groklaw for nothing. Hope LWN does the same.

I'm not gonna feed you anymore. I've seen enough to be sure you're hired by Microsoft, and frankly, don't know why I doubted that in the first place. It is bloody obvious.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:49 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (1 responses)

I was looking really hard for some substance in your comment but couldn't find it. You replied to a comment of mine with which I provided lots of facts. Now you argue about my blog not having comments enabled and why that is the case in your opinion. As far as I link to my blog here, it's to facilitate further research by people who really want to find out. You also talk about another site (GroklXX) having supposedly "banned" me. I'm available for discussions, online and in real life when I attend industry events. Also, I've answered many questions on Twitter (@FOSSpatents). So if you wanted to discuss the issue, you'd have plenty of opportunities, especially here.

IBM/TurboHercules can be resolved with license; no need for abolition

Posted Oct 4, 2010 9:37 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

It's more I think Florian has abandoned Groklaw. He gets called out too much by people who know what they're talking about.

I don't think PJ has banned him. But I don't think he's got quite the thick hide trolls need to withstand an army of troll-hunters. The regulars there have rather driven him off.

Cheers,
Wol

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:38 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (12 responses)

> Red Hat is one of biggest reasons for success of FLOSS in general. They and Cygnus put it on the map. I would even argue that MySQL owes lots of it's success to Red Hat. If MySQL wasn't in RHEL, it would be stillborn.

And Red Hat was one of the venture capital investors providing seed funding for MySQL AB: http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/generate-article.php...

No, Red Hat did not provide "seed funding for MySQL AB"

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:44 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

And Red Hat was one of the venture capital investors providing seed funding for MySQL AB

As a former MySQL AB shareholder, I know that this is wrong. If you look at the press release you linked to, it's from 2006. MySQL AB was founded and received its seed investments in 2001 (the year I became involved as well). It received some more funding that year as well as in 2002 from European investors. Then in 2003, Benchmark Capital (knowing for funding eBay, Red Hat, Twitter), Index Ventures (known for funding Skype), SAP's corporate venture capital group and others came in. Red Hat came in three years after those, five years after the seed round.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:49 UTC (Fri) by gnufreex (guest, #70396) [Link] (10 responses)

Thank you. I knew that but forgot to mention.

But mentioning that wouldn't help anyways, Florian will invent (and maybe patent) some crazy explanation why Red Hat's money is parasitic and why MySQL AB would be better off without it. That happens when you feed the tr.. I mean lobbyist.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 8:53 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

Prior to your thanking him for this, I had already posted a correction. Red Hat came in very late (and owned a tiny share of the company), five years after the seed round. I doubt MySQL ever even spent one cent of Red Hat's money because it didn't have any significant burn rate at the time and was sold shortly thereafter.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 9:01 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (8 responses)

> But mentioning that wouldn't help anyways, Florian will invent (and maybe patent) some crazy explanation why Red Hat's money is parasitic and why MySQL AB would be better off without it. That happens when you feed the tr.. I mean lobbyist.

Ha ha. But yes, you are right as you can see above. The venture capital Red Hat injected into the MySQL AB company wasn't "seed capital", so obviously it is just more proof of the parasitic nature of Red Hat :) How dare they try to take a chance and invest in innovative companies and business methods! Well, it was worth a try to inject some facts into the discussion.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 9:06 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (7 responses)

@mjw It's disappointing to see that you react so unreasonably to my clarification. It was *you* who said that Red Hat was a seed investor. You could have phrased it more broadly, then I wouldn't have had to correct it. It certainly does make a major difference whether a company places a seed investment in something when the risk is highest or comes in when the company is already in great shape and ends up being sold not much later.

Obviously it's not "parasitic" to invest money at any stage. It's just that coming in at that stage isn't when you can claim to be a co-creator of the product.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 9:24 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (6 responses)

Dude lighten up. We are just making fun of your impulsive desire to discredit Red Hat at every possibility you see. Don't focus on such small details like a different interpretation of the word "seed capital" to score some point. The point was just that they do invest in things like MySQL through various ways.

There are just many different ways Free Software companies like Red Hat invest and innovate in communities, projects, projects and their customers. They just like doing that by providing high value at lower costs to their customers by being a catalyst and amplifier of the free software ecosystem. They even invested in you by paying you to play lobbyist at a time when that did make sense. So yes, sometimes Red Hat makes mistakes, sometimes they invest time, money and resources in things that turn out not to benefit them and the community as much as we hope. But that is just what you do when you take risks and try to innovate and change an industry.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 11:38 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (5 responses)

There is no "different interpretation of the word 'seed capital'".

You said a wrong thing -- why can't you admit it? Seed capital is clearly defined and not by any stretch of the imagination would a company founded in 2001, sold in 2008, be at the "seed" stage in 2006.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 12:17 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (4 responses)

> There is no "different interpretation of the word 'seed capital'".

Well, clearly there was, since you meant something different by it than I did.

> You said a wrong thing -- why can't you admit it? Seed capital is clearly defined and not by any stretch of the imagination would a company founded in 2001, sold in 2008, be at the "seed" stage in 2006.

Relax. You "won" your point. Feel free to just read that sentence without the word seed in there. So "Red Hat was one of the venture capital investors providing funding for MySQL AB". There fixed. The point was just a little addition to what others had said. Red Hat invested through various means to help make MySQL a success.

But this is precisely why we are making a little fun of you. You seem to want to win these grammatical/spelling error points over a wrongly used word in a sentence. While missing the bigger discussion completely.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 12:23 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (3 responses)

The fact that you meant something different by "seed capital" is irrelevant. You can mean what you want and that doesn't automatically mean that there are different definitions by even remotely reasonable standards. Better look up Wikipedia (deep link leads to relevant paragraph) or any other source.

I said before that seed makes all the difference here. When we talk about creating innovation, the critical stage is early, not shortly before trade sale or IPO.

Contrary to what you claim, I'm not missing the bigger discussion. We're having one big discussion here, and in some subthreads, individual aspects such as Red Hat's investment in MySQL get discussed.

Are you a Red Hat employee by any chance? I believe you (unless I confuse you for another nickname) identified yourself as one in some other thread. It would have been nice to do so in this context in case you are.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 1, 2010 12:39 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (2 responses)

> Contrary to what you claim, I'm not missing the bigger discussion.

Lets disagree, I think this whole discussion shows you are missing why you are wrong in the bigger discussion.

> I believe you (unless I confuse you for another nickname) identified yourself as one in some other thread. It would have been nice to do so in this context in case you are.

Dude, you are repeating yourself. Try to relax and not relive every discussion again and again. Yes, we discussed this already. You fail to identify who funds you and I was open about who funds what work I do:
http://lwn.net/Articles/402409/

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 5, 2010 22:38 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

It's been four days and Florian doesn't seem to have followed up to this post. Strange that.

Red Hat invested venture capital for MySQL

Posted Oct 6, 2010 3:56 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

During those days there's been a lot of interest in the Android situation (firstly Microsoft's announcement of infringement action against Motorola, then also Oracle's reply to Google's suit) and I had to answer press questions and I wanted to analyze the overall situation on my blog, which was a lot of work (looking at all patents-in-suit from all three Android cases).

I'll try to answer questions to the extent they bring up new points that should be discussed. But I can't always do it as quickly as I'd like to.