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robbat2
Monty Widenius (one of the original authors of MySQL) has asked for help in lodging objections to Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems.
I have no objections to the EC posting my mail, but I thought to also post it here, and help spread the word.
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 2009 02:39:25 +0000 From: "Robin H. Johnson" <[email protected]> Subject: Objection to Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems (due to MySQL) To: [email protected] Name: Robin H. Johnson Title: Development Manager / Lead Developer Company: IsoHunt Web Technologies Inc. Size of company: (privately held) How many MySQL installations: More than 10 Total data stored in MySQL (megabyte): More than 80000 (>80GB) For what type of applications is MySQL used: Web index Should this email be kept confidential by EC: No I am concerned for the open-source health of MySQL if Oracle's plan to buy Sun goes through in it's present form. When Sun bought MySQL, they made explicit promises to uphold many of the open-source tenets of MySQL, and not did not try to weasel out of them. When Oracle bought Innobase (InnoDB being a key component inside MySQL): - they became opaque to the outside world, no outside submissions were considered even from Sun/MySQL. - Bugfixes were only done by contractual obligation, not by the spirit of improving open source and just fixing things that were broken. Thus I do not believe the purchase of Sun (and by proxy MySQL) will benefit the greater good. Additionally, if you feel that Oracle purchasing IBM's DB2 division or Microsoft's SQL Server division would be bad for the competitive market, the same should be true for MySQL. I ask that you take one of the following options a) require Oracle to sell MySQL and not retain it. b) require Oracle to make legally binding guarantees on the future of MySQL [1]. c) reject the deal completely. [1] Monty Widenius (one of the original authors of MySQL) has drafted a list of proposed guarantees, which I reproduce here verbatim. ==== - All of MySQL will continue to be fully Open Source/free software in the future (no closed source modules) - That development will be done in community friendly way. - The manual should be released under a permissive license (so that one can fork it, the same way one can fork the server) - That MySQL should be released under a more permissive license to ensure that forks can truly compete with Oracle if Oracle is not a good steward after all. Alternatively: - One should be able to always buy low priced commercial licenses for MySQL. ==== -- Robin Hugh Johnson E-Mail : [email protected] GnuPG FP : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-13 09:38 am (UTC)MySQL is already opensource, they can do nothing to change that. It can be forked at any time ( it has already happend ). Closed source modules would still have to be in compliance with the license, just as for any external closed source modules. And the claim that MySQL and oracleDB compete for the same customers is quite ridiculous.
As SUN is one of the biggest contributors to opensource anything that aids them is good for the opensource community! A report found that 26% of the code in Debian is contributed by SUN...
I urge you to retract you statement to the EC as it is thoroughly misguided.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-13 07:21 pm (UTC)I consider Oracle's behaviour with Innobase to be a strong indicator of how they would behave with anything that they bought and poses a threat to their core business. While they may make contributions to the Linux kernel, it's because it benefits their core business. There have been solid, on good faith contributions from Oracle where it has not at least indirectly benefited their core business.
InnoDB and MySQL on the other hand are direct threats to their core business. There are several closed-source MySQL engines (Infobright, Tokutek, Calpont amongst them), the licensing does not disallow them. One of the worst possible things that Oracle could do is shift funds from the open-source engines and instead promote a new closed-source engine of their own creation, and I believe this to already be happening in the guise of InnoDB+.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-16 06:08 pm (UTC)Please give an example when oracleDB and mysql has competed for the same customer/job. They are very different type of databases for very different use cases.
Besides that Oracle has made assurances about mysql's future: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/042364
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-16 07:17 pm (UTC)I didn't say Oracle and MySQL compete in the same field always. I'll fully acknowledge there are places where they are not equal, and I've used both of them there (partially translucent databases). However Oracle has been promoting themselves for the web market, under the guise of (and I'm paraphrasing here from when an Oracle salesperson last approached me): "have a bigger database, able to scale further than MySQL, and avoid switching later".
Their assurances are interesting, but:
- most of the items are just things that are already true.
- why the 5 year time limit?
- why didn't they formally file them with the EC?
- the Advisory board items show they were not aware that said Boards ALREADY existed, but there is nothing about how much influence said boards will have.
I don't agree with some of the other items in Monty's review of the "assurances", as I think they will keep enterprise+community together and instead focus heavily into a closed-source engine (InnoDB+) that they sell, while trimming development on the open-source parts (just like they did with Innobase).
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-17 06:38 pm (UTC)@why the 5 year time limit?: Who knows what will happen in that time? I think it is unreasonable to give assurances or make demands for a longer period of time.
@why didn't they formally file them with the EC?: They probably felt they didn't need to. As the EC is looking into the buisness competition situation they ( Oracle ) take it for granted that people know the differances.
Other people of the community are approving the accuisition, here is one if you haven't seen it already: http://www.pythian.com/news/6427/a-mysql-community-member-opinion-of-oracle-buying-sun/