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 8:21 UTC (Fri) by bojan (subscriber, #14302)
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

> 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.

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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.