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Question of the Day: Do you think Bafana Bafana will win tonight?
Sun Microsystems says it has acquired MySQL database
- Thread starter rpm
- Start date
Maybe too soon to speculate.
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2008/01/extinguishing-lamp-sun-buys-mysql.html
Glynn Moody seems to think the move will harm Gnu/Linux, however, webmink (Simon Phipps) is .. um .. not happy.
"Simon Phipps is the Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, co-ordinating Sun's extensive participation in free and open source software communities and actively participating in the global conversation they express. ..." (http://www.webmink.net/speaker.htm)
I don't think Sun would have made an Open Source acquisition without consulting their own Chief of said, So I'd suggest keeping an eye on his blogs to see how Sun/he hopes to see things happen:
http://blogs.sun.com/webmink/
http://www.webmink.net/
... from the horses mouth, so to speak.
Press Release on mysql's homepage: http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/sun-to-acquire-mysql.html
Edit: Blogs are usually nothing more than rumour mills.
Edit: Blogs are usually nothing more than rumour mills.
Microsoft and others have always peddled the idea to potential developers/entrepreneurs that open source can't make you rich. Well these guys must be smiling now. Well done to them. I use MySQL and find it extremely useful.
I'm sure this deal might lead other companies to look into potential acquisitions of other open sourced applications.
PS. Regarding Sun's plans, I don't think they will change the licensing agreement. It will remain open source, but they'll use to build on their existing business. A good acquisition for them.
I'm sure this deal might lead other companies to look into potential acquisitions of other open sourced applications.
PS. Regarding Sun's plans, I don't think they will change the licensing agreement. It will remain open source, but they'll use to build on their existing business. A good acquisition for them.
Moederloos
Honorary Master
SUN may very well develop better integrated products - think M$.NET and MSSQL's CLI.
redarrow
Expert Member
You can't "close" the source on software already released as open source .. not with any amount of money.
Sure you can buy the copyright, assuming you can actually come to an agreement with the presumably 100's of people who own the code (unless all persons joining the project handed copyright on their contribution to one or a few people) and once you own the copyright you can stop releasing as open source and switch to closed source.
The important thing however is that you cannot revoke the open source license on previously released "versions".. meaning that anyone can take one of those and fork them into a new project.
That's why open source will always outlive closed source..
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Well, at least now, Directors with their heads in the lower regions of their bowels, will have to stop using the argument "We use MSSQL because if mySQL breaks we cannot sue anyone because its Open Source and therefore useless".
The_Unbeliever
Honorary Master
Now that's a stupid mentality IMHO
OSS is just as good (and in some cases) better than their commercial equivalents.
Moederloos
Honorary Master
Now that's a stupid mentality IMHO
OSS is just as good (and in some cases) better than their commercial equivalents.
I agree fully - I hope I did not inadvertently give the impression that that is MY opinion - I have just bumped heads with that view-point way too often.
Skeptik
Banned
Most good software starts off as open-source or freeware, then when it proves viable and popular they impose a fee. You can go on using early releases with little or no support, but old software is soon left behind.You can't "close" the source on software already released as open source .. not with any amount of money.
Sure you can buy the copyright, assuming you can actually come to an agreement with the presumably 100's of people who own the code (unless all persons joining the project handed copyright on their contribution to one or a few people) and once you own the copyright you can stop releasing as open source and switch to closed source.
The important thing however is that you cannot revoke the open source license on previously released "versions".. meaning that anyone can take one of those and fork them into a new project.
That's why open source will always outlive closed source..
redarrow
Expert Member
Don't confuse regular freeware with open-source .. they are entirely different..
If a closed source freeware app developer suddenly starts charging for his app, sure then you can only utilize the older versions as far as they were developed at the time.. however if an open source developer stops releasing open source versions you can take the last open source release and continue developing it yourself ..
With stuff like MySQL it's inevitable that some group would do exactly that if the need arose.. which is why support will not die for these apps.. Like linux itself..
What's more is that the new fork would gain popularity as rapidly as the "original" branch would lose it..
Look at it like this: MySQL comes standard with most Linux distro's and most Linux distro's do not include any closed source software..
The maintainers of these distro's would still wish to include a database and it can be assured that they would not all suddenly start including closed apps and start requiring users to pay licensing fee's for the closed software included..
Nope.. they'd just find the new open source fork and include that instead.
This is all hypothetical debate of course, as I really don't think Sun would be stupid enough to try switching to a closed license...
It was a bit strange, seeing as sun was a postgres advocate, but I guess they couldn't buy postgres the way they bought mysql.
I'm sure they will keep mysql open and maybe even ditch the alternate proprietary license it has at the moment.
I'll still stick with postgres tho.