mySQL no longer distributing enterprise source

sneakyimp

does this bother anyone?
http://www.linux.com/feature/118489

I've always wondered if these technologies (mySQL, PHP, etc.) are going to some day be 'taken away' or something....as in 'stop being free' but I have a hard time wrapping my head around whether it's possible or if i would really care if they stopped writing mySQL or whether it's legally possible to retract my ability to use mySQL for free or whatever.

Anyone care to comment?

david_wright

I guess in order to sell something somebody has to own it. Open source material, as I understand it, has been developed by many and therefore owned by none. Might it be possible that making a contribution to the world at large could be more rewarding than an extra dollar?
David

sneakyimp

You are mistaken that money can't be made off open source software. Red Hat (although possibly not open source now) made money off linux.

laserlight

I've always wondered if these technologies (mySQL, PHP, etc.) are going to some day be 'taken away' or something....as in 'stop being free' but I have a hard time wrapping my head around whether it's possible or if i would really care if they stopped writing mySQL or whether it's legally possible to retract my ability to use mySQL for free or whatever.

The worrying part would be the contributor agreement. In the hands of a benevolent entity, assignment of copyrights could make it easier to upgrade to a new version of an existing open source license, or possibly to deal with cases of copyright infringement. In the hands of a company that may put corporate interests first, however, things may be different. I have no legal training, but from what I understand licenses can be revoked at will, if there is no interest such as a license fee. Contracts are safer in this sense, but then contracts (e.g., AFL, OSL) have problems when it comes to typical open source distribution (e.g., no shrink wrap or click wrap).

At the moment, it seems that MySQL AB have taken the Red Hat route: allow access to the enterprise source for those with sufficient technical know how (via the version control system), force payment for more immediately usable forms of the enterprise software. It definitely is still open source software at it stands, so my concern is whether they will cut off access to the enterprise source even from version control, and/or relicense the enterprise version under a proprietary license. If they do not, then just as CentOS and other distros sprung up to be binary compatible with the official RHEL, unofficial distributions of MySQL Enterprise Server may also be made.

MarkR

I should point out that what MySQL AB are charging for is a supported product - mysql enterprise is still open source and you're free to continue to use it in an unsupported fashion.

There are of course some tools which are non-free made by MySQL AB too.

Although they've move the client libs to GPL, there is a special exception client library for PHP, which is specifically designed to allow PHP to include an embedded client library which can be distributed under the PHP licence (i.e. with the rest of PHP).

Mark

laserlight

I should point out that what MySQL AB are charging for is a supported product - mysql enterprise is still open source and you're free to continue to use it in an unsupported fashion.

Not quite. They are no longer merely charging for support, but also charging for official binaries and packaged source distributions of MySQL Enterprise Server. Since MySQL Enterprise Server is still under an open source license and the source is still freely available (although a little harder to get in an immediately usable form), it remains open source software.

sneakyimp

Ok I went back and read it again. If you buy the shrink-wrapped product, you get the tarball. That's not so bad I guess. I didn't read it closely enough originally and was under the impression they were not distributing source at all which as I understand it is a violation of the GPL.