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Without these, creating a viable revenue stream is incredibly difficult. Yes, and Monty knew that when he chose to structure MySQL the product that way. Everything is proceeding exactly as he foresaw and intended.
I agree -- and I think Monty has no business taking umbrage with the bed he's made -- but it's worth exploring why this is the case.
I can guarantee that for the $1Bn Sun's shareholder's paid him for it - 14% of the total price Oracle is paying for all of Sun - Monty could buy MySQL back from Oracle and do with it as he pleased. So why doesn't he?
Really? Java (which is most of the value of Sun) and MySQL are the only Sun products in mainstream use. Solaris is in the same state as HPUX was 10 years ago, VirtualBox and Sun's Xen Product don't have significant market share. Why would Oracle want to sell MySQL back?
(Agree though - Oracle would want to keep mysql)
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Really? Java (which is most of the value of Sun) and MySQL are the only Sun products in mainstream use. Solaris is in the same state as HPUX was 10 years ago, VirtualBox and Sun's Xen Product don't have significant market share. Why would Oracle want to sell MySQL back?
Because they bought Sun for the hardware-business and Java. They sort-a already have a database, and if selling MySQL to Monty can save them some trouble with a bored EU regulator that gets its kicks from telling US business how to operate, I'm sure they'll be happy to. It'll have to be at market value, though, and it seems a bit like Monty wants a solution where he stays very rich.
Sun's storage products are top notch but I doubt Oracle specifically wanted to move into the field. Selling replacement SPARCs to the banks that still have Solaris won't last long, Oracle know that.
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I agree -- and I think Monty has no business taking umbrage with the bed he's made -- but it's worth exploring why this is the case.
Would it be fair to speculate that he never foresaw the largest proprietary DB vendor eventually buying MySql?
On the other hand, if I thought my project was going to be a cash cow, I would have done exactly what Monty did, except the whining after the fact. I think if I buy a car, then sell it to someone and that person sells it later to my arch nemesis for a discount and he plans on wrecking the heck out of it, my screaming about how this is not right is not going to attract many supporters, is it?
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Because they bought Sun for the hardware-business and Java. They sort-a already have a database, and if selling MySQL to Monty can save them some trouble with a bored EU regulator that gets its kicks from telling US business how to operate, I'm sure they'll be happy to. It'll have to be at market value, though, and it seems a bit like Monty wants a solution where he stays very rich.
So they didn't buy Sun to get the largest OSS database in the world? Sun's storage products are top notch but I doubt Oracle specifically wanted to move into the field. Selling replacement SPARCs to the banks that still have Solaris won't last long, Oracle know that.
They specifically cited Java and hardware in the acquisition announcement, and I have a really hard time seeing the strategic value of the MySQL asset. Oracle has much more to gain from a "come to us when you're ready to sit at the grown-ups table" position.
1: http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/09/29/oracle-scolded-by-ind...
An open-source project is more than the code. It also includes the community and the resources for continuing development. Although the code is under the GPL, Sun (and now possibly Oracle) has control of the brand and many of the potential revenue streams. A fork would lack the benefit of a clear, centralized community and many resources to fund development. Both of these things threaten the future of MySQL as an ope…
If the same zeal and effort being spent to oppose Oracle were being spent to create a community around a fork, helped by the controversy it'd be a widely known thing already. Couple that with OS vendors choosing the fork over the "mainline", and in a few years the fork would be "the" MySQL, albeit with a different name.
A commenter says that no fork will be able to offer a dual license, and that a fork is only for the GPL portion of the license. Even so, what's the big deal there? Any sizable company can offer to sell a support contract for an open source license of the DB. What am I missing here?
I'm firmly disagree with Monty's duplicity, but I'll try to shed some light on it. The "big deal" is that only two things provide a revenue stream around MySQL sufficient to support the heavy R&D costs associated with building a database product: - The name ("MySQL") - The copyright. If you own the name, you can sell branded binaries and services. If you own the copyright, you can sell non-GPL licenses to commercial…
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Would it be fair to speculate that he never foresaw the largest proprietary DB vendor eventually buying MySql?
The only thing we can speculate about is what we would have done in his shoes, unless he provides a convincing insight. If it was me, and I cared about a project of mine for the sake of the project and thought it was a vital project (as opposed to one of my tinker toys), I would have open sources the whole thing, no dual license. That way nobody can "steal" it from the community, by buying some company. I would also…
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"some were paying for non-gpl'd versions of the code to integrate/resell in their products" If that's what they need, perhaps to migrate their products to a BSD-licensed RDBMS like PostgreSQL. Or to a public-domain one like SQLite. Or a fully proprietary one. It's their software and, since, they have already licensed it as proprietary, their users were already robbed the freedoms GPL'ed MySQL would provide. As it is…
The only freedom GPL denies a developer is to close up software that was once free. You can't "close up" software that was free. The software remains free. The only freedom the allegedly "more open" licenses give developers is to deny freedoms to their users. It gives developers the freedom to create an aggregate product without also releasing their own code under the GPL, allowing them to pursue a business model tha…
What GPL prevents that BSD doesn't is closed forks. Obviously some people don't care about closed forks --- some people may even like them on principle --- or nobody would BSD-license anything.
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You have no way of knowing that. Ellison could view even $2 billion as a small price to pay for owning MySQL. MySQL has been a thorn in his side for years, and now he owns it.
Great. Ellison owns a piece of software anybody can fork and use as GPL!