What Can We Learn from the MySQL Saga?
It seems appropriate that Sweden, the original home of MySQL, should be part of the ancient Norse territories, for the MySQL open/closed code story is threatening to turn into a saga as long and as complex as Njal's.
To recap. First, came the news that MySQL was preparing to release some backup code as closed source:
Officials at Sun Microsystems, which acquired MySQL in February, confirmed that new online backup capabilities now under development will be offered only to MySQL Enterprise customers -- not to the much larger number of users of the free MySQL Community edition.
Then came the explanation from MySQL's boss, Marten Mickos:
we are contemplating a number of scenarios. And one is that it would be closed source and nobody other than us could see the source code; another is that we give the customers the source code if they like to see it, which we certainly can do; the third one is that it is GPL, we just don't ship it to other than paying customers. So there's a number of alternatives.
So what can we learn from this twisted tale?
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer friendly version
- 341 reads
Money buys open sourced copyrighted codes ? Future doomed ?
Open sourced codes are doomed, when big money buys the project; and you are not on the payroll. However, even GPL may not be able to claim the private intellectual property if any open sourced coders holds a copy of his improved codes in a stamped envelop to claim prior art.
In another 10 years, we will see quite a different scene, when webpages are the codes every one writes in pixels of pictures, not ascii codes.
Even MySql had to change data format from xml to mpeg4/h.264 files and store in direct .net packets(reiserFS type of database, using search engines). Fat(tables) as we know it will be obsoleted. Is Microsoft already storing packets(framebuffers) in virtual memory in hdd for browsers?