jg21 writes "In the continuing saga of the decision by MySQL previously discussed here on Slashdot to make a deal with SCO Group, the company's CEO Marten Mickos has now granted an interview in which he addresses the inevitable criticism that the deal has provoked in the F/OSS community. His main defense seems to be that other companies have ported to SCO too. He admits money too played a part." From the article: "We believe that porting a GPL version of MySQL for the SCO OpenServer platform gives thousands of users more options when it comes to choosing a database -- which is a good thing. The deal produces revenue for us and this allows us to hire more opensource developers. We didn't make the decision lightly; we knew SCO was a sensitive subject with the free software and open source communities."Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='caldera,databases';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; MySQL CEO Insists He's Not Supping With The Devil Log in/Create an Account | Top | 161 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 161 comments 0: 153 comments 1: 123 comments 2: 88 comments 3: 29 comments 4: 15 comments 5: 7 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Not So Free Software (Score:3, Insightful) by cowboy76Spain (815442) on Saturday October 22, @04:43PM (#13853859) I wonder why this is an issue. If someone wants to port its own software on a new platform, who should argue against it? [ Reply to ThisRe:Not So Free Software by lewp (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @04:47PMRe:Not So Free Software by venicebeach (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:07PMRe:Not So Free Software by Ryouga3 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:09PMRe:Not So Free Software by venicebeach (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:16PMRe:Not So Free Software by Arker (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:34PMRe:Not So Free Software by venicebeach (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:28PMRe:Not So Free Software by Arker (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @11:50PM Re:Not So Free Software (Score:5, Interesting) by Arker (91948) on Saturday October 22, @05:13PM (#13853999) (http://antiwar.com/) The only reason it's an issue is because web sites like this one are heavily infiltrated by astro-turfers that will try to make it an issue so their masters can then squeal about 'linux zealots.' MySQL made a deal, they got paid money to support a platform. That the client, in this case, happens to be the litigiousbastards [sco.com] was sure to raise a few eyebrows, and did, but not much more than that. Business is business. I hope Mårten made sure their check cleared before he let anyone put in any hours on that project... *shrug* [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Not So Free Software by eh2o (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:32PMRe:Not So Free Software by einhverfr (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:25PMRe:Not So Free Software by Billly Gates (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:05PM Re:Not So Free Software (Score:4, Funny) by einhverfr (238914) <[moc.liamtoh] [ta] [rfrevhnie]> on Saturday October 22, @08:13PM (#13854747) (http://www.metatrontech.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday June 23, @01:15AM) Paranoid? Yes, but this is SCO and all the people they sued so far were Openserver customers switching to Linux. My favorite claim they made was when they claimed that Daimler Crysler did not adequately provide a list of systems running their software, and that the response of "we haven't used your software in seven years" did not qualify as a list.Fortunately the judge was not amused by the level of creativity in this interpretation and promptly threw out most of the SCO v. DCC suit (she left the possibility that SCO could sue DCC for not responding in a timely fashion to their inquiry, but the rest was thrown out). [ Reply to This | Parent Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful) by Saeed al-Sahaf (665390) on Saturday October 22, @04:56PM (#13853921) MySQL signed a full-scale deal with SCO (including a joint marketing deal )... it wasn't just "porting the software". MySQL jumped into bed with them and snuggled up. Oh, bullshit. SCO and the OpenServer platform are dieing. This was a quick cash grab and nothing more. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Bullshit. by schon (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @08:39PMRe:Bullshit? How do you know? by walterbyrd (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @08:43PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Not So Free Software by 91degrees (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:01PMRe:Not So Free Software by IGoChopYourDollars (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:06PM Re:Not So Free Software (Score:4, Insightful) by Red Alastor (742410) on Saturday October 22, @05:18PM (#13854024) The value of the SCO platform can hardly increase to a point where it is a good idea to buy it. MySQL or not, they are dying. The only people that can benefit from the deal (beside MySQL making a buck on it) are SCO's actual customers who might need MySQL. Once SCO dies, they will have to migrate. Probably to Linux. Guess what they'll use there ?So they got a contract and potential new users. [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Not So Free Software by Canadian_Daemon (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:30PMRe:Not So Free Software by Proc6 (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:22PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:It's rather simple by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:56PMRe:It's rather simple by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @09:05PM4 replies beneath your current threshold. And sit back... (Score:2) by Gordonjcp (186804) on Saturday October 22, @04:45PM (#13853866) (http://slashdot.org/) ... and just watch a million geek blogs get converted to SQLite [sqlite.org]. [ Reply to ThisRe:And sit back... by TheSpoom (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:14PMRe:And sit back... by FST777 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @09:11PMRe:And sit back... by bigtangringo (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @08:17PMRe:And sit back... by someone300 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @10:06PM Go PostgreSQL (Score:5, Insightful) by GiorgioG (225675) on Saturday October 22, @04:45PM (#13853869) (http://www.valianthost.com/) In the long-run I think Postgres will eat MySQL's lunch because now, there's a native Windows version *and* the whole dual licensing crap will make most small commercial software developers move away from MySQL (I know I won't be developing any applications (all non-PHP work) using MySQL) [ Reply to ThisDual licensing for PostgreSQL... by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:28PMRe:Go PostgreSQL by muuh-gnu (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @07:19PMWrong by einhverfr (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @08:09PMRe:Go PostgreSQL by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @10:38PMRe:Go PostgreSQL by dbullock (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @10:42PM Stupidity (Score:4, Insightful) by Saeed al-Sahaf (665390) on Saturday October 22, @04:47PM (#13853883) I think MySQL would be wise to shut up about the whole MySQL / SCO thing and hope it goes away. I can't understand why they keep talking about it, this can only hurt them. [ Reply to ThisRe:Stupidity by Kemuri (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @04:54PM Re:Stupidity (Score:4, Interesting) by venicebeach (702856) on Saturday October 22, @05:13PM (#13854001) (http://www.jonaskaplan.com/ | Last Journal: Friday April 09, @04:10AM) It seems that Forbes has been drumming this conflict up a bit [forbes.com]. Interesting Groklaw article [groklaw.net] about some fishy reporting on the issue by Forbes. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Stupidity by absinthminded64 (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:51PMRe:Stupidity by LionKimbro (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:32PMRe:Stupidity by pingveno (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:58PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. And how is this different from... (Score:5, Insightful) by MosesJones (55544) on Saturday October 22, @04:49PM (#13853890) (http://service-architecture.blogspot.com/) Yahoo handing in a demonstrator....Google agreeing to censor....And a massive amount of US companies doing extremely dodgy deals with disreputable regimes, you know like Dick Cheney meeting Saddam Hussein.So MySql (a relatively poor database before SapDB came in) have agreed to work with SCO to get a bit of cash. Not the most moral decisions but certainly against what those who dealt with Saddam Hussein or the Chinese Goverment its pretty small fry. [ Reply to ThisRe:And how is this different from... by VJ42 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:04PMBecause SCO will sue us for using MySQL! by backslashdot (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @06:02PMRe:Because SCO will sue us for using MySQL! by Dwonis (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @10:03PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. His software's free, and that's good enough (Score:5, Insightful) by fuzzy12345 (745891) on Saturday October 22, @04:51PM (#13853897) First, I've never been a fan of mySQL for the simple reason that I was a 'REAL' (ACID) database guy and felt that mySQL gave database a bad name. Nonetheless, it sure beat hell out of flat files and, just as PHP might be inferior to 'industrial' computer languages, if people (who otherwise wouldn't have gotten a database at all) used PHP+mySQL to create stuff that otherwise wouldn't have gotten built, kudos to them.Then came the debate as to whether mySQL was pure enough in Licensing. Once again, I didn't care, but thought "how can you criticize a man for giving you something for free?"Now comes the flap about what else this company does to pay the rent. They still allow free use of mySQL, there's still other alternatives if you don't like his terms, I'm still using more industrial/ACID solutions, and others are still throwing rocks at the mySQL people.The undisputably weird thing is that the good folks giving away mySQL are taking more abuse from the community than if they'd never given it away at all. How's that for incentive for everyone else??? [ Reply to ThisScenario. by khasim (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:45PMRe:Scenario. by Seumas (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:16PMRe:Scenario. by gnuLNX (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:48PMRe:Scenario. by bmo (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:48PMTainted Code!! by backslashdot (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:00PMSCO, Oracle, and Berkely the axis of evil by absinthminded64 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:46PM Re:His software's free, and that's good enough (Score:4, Informative) by einhverfr (238914) <[moc.liamtoh] [ta] [rfrevhnie]> on Saturday October 22, @06:01PM (#13854177) (http://www.metatrontech.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday June 23, @01:15AM) Free != inferior. Similarly, just because someone attaches a price tag to something doesn't mean it's automatically 'bad ass'. After all, you can put a price tag on anything, even a steaming pile of shit.Which is technically more advanced? PostgreSQL or MySQL? Which is more Free? Which costs less? In every case the answer is PostgreSQL. So I agree with you.And I suggest you take a better look at PHP, how widely used it is, and the heavyweights that are using it, before calling it 'inferior'.As someone who regularly programs in Perl, Python, and PHP, I would say that PHP is incredibly advanced for niche applications (preprocessing text/html/xml files) and not advanced at all for anything else. It always feels extremely kludgy in areas like GUI programming or general purpose scripting (both Perl and Python are better fits here), but if you want a program that generates, say a config file, PHP is not a bad fit.Part of the problem with MySQL though is that it achieved earlier popularity for two reasons:1) Its main FOSS competitor, PostgreSQL was a bear to use in the 6.5 days and2) MySQL being a for-profit company was able to leverage centralized marketing.However, many key features were missing from MySQL early on including any semblence of ACID compliance (still not really there in 4.x in that the consistancy and integrity factors are still not nearly complete). Secondly Date's Central Rule still does not apply to 5.0 in that strict mode can always be turned off (even by a client app), so data integrity constraints can be circumvented by applications. For those of us who understand what an RDBMS is supposed to do both mathematically and business-wise, MySQL is a case of asking for trouble.At the same time, PostgreSQL has solved nearly every usability issue it had in the 6.5 days. Right now debate seems to center around what the standard says about padding and collating sequences, case folding, and handling space padding of char variables in concatenation. No more wishing you could drop a column from a table (you could not prior to 7.3, I think). As of 8.1 the last major usability issues will be *gone* from PostgreSQL. I refer of course to the requirement to vacuum. autovacuum is now part of the backend process. And xid wraparound is solved too. A warning is automatically generated when xid's start to run out, and the rdbms is now smart enough to shut down rather than let it roll over and cause data loss (this almost never happened, because on nearly any production database, performance would dictate vacuuming long before this would become an issue). At the same time, I am not aware of anything that MySQL can do that PostgreSQL can't do as well. For example:1) 8.1 will have TPC, and the JDBC driver will support XA2) Replication/clustering possible using add-ons like Slony and PgPool or PgCluster.3) If you need access to external servers/table types/etc. there is DBI-Link which is a subset of the SQL/MED standard.4) Daisy chaining triggers :-) [ Reply to This | ParentRe:His software's free, and that's good enough by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @10:46PMRe:His software's free, and that's good enough by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @11:20PMRe:His software's free, and that's good enough by mr_z_beeblebrox (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:07PMRe:His software's free, and that's good enough by wolrahnaes (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @06:19PMRe:His software's free, and that's good enough by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:27PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.2 replies beneath your current threshold. Cash up front, thanks. (Score:2) by DrSkwid (118965) on Saturday October 22, @04:51PM (#13853898) (http://www.milksucks.com/ | Last Journal: Monday September 15, @01:30PM) I hope they got cash up front or else it could end up being a write off pretty soon!http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/08/ibm_drops_ sco_countersuit/ [theregister.co.uk]"While IBM continues to believe that SCO infringed IBM's valid patents, IBM agreed to withdraw its patent counterclaims to simplify and focus the issues in this case and to expedite their resolution. The little discovery that SCO has produced regarding IBM's patent claims makes clear that there is insufficient economic reason to pursue these claims. Since SCO's sales have been, and are, limited, a finding of infringement would yield only the most modest royalty or award of damages and would not justify the expense of continuing prosecution of these claims," said IBM. [ Reply to This Re:Cash up front, thanks. (Score:5, Interesting) by tomhudson (43916) <thudson@@@gmail...com> on Saturday October 22, @05:09PM (#13853977) (Last Journal: Saturday October 22, @07:20PM) If you had bothered to read the Groklaw interview almost 2 weeks ago http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510112 11450706 [groklaw.net]you would have found out that SCO paid mySQL.Money taken from SCO is less money for their FUD machine.It also gives people stuck on SCO a chance to migrate their stuff slowly to other platforms.Move existing services to mySQl on SCO platformreplace SCO platform with *BSD or *LinuxSo how is that a bad thing again? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Cash up front, thanks. by rm69990 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:07PMRe:Cash up front, thanks. by tomhudson (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:47PMSCO will sue us for using tainted code! by backslashdot (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:09PMRe:SCO will sue us for using tainted code! by tomhudson (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:53PM Market Grab? (Score:2) by Saeed al-Sahaf (665390) on Saturday October 22, @05:02PM (#13853941) Consider this: SCO and the OpenServer platform are dieing, so is this nothing more than a quick and easy cash grab for MySQL? Perhaps, but maybe there is more.There are at least a few people still locked into the OpenServer platform, but sometime in the future, they will have to migrate to Linux after the final nail has been driven into SCO. When they eventually do migrate to Linux, they will have to make some choices as to what database to migrate to as well. Will it be Oracle? Will it be PostgreSQL? Well, if they have already beem using MySQL on OpenServer, they will probably stay with MySQL on Linux. Do you see where this is going? [ Reply to ThisRe:Market Grab? by Kemuri (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:09PMRe:Market Grab? by Saeed al-Sahaf (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:11PM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:Market Grab? by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:38PMBut by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:33PMYes, but I disagree. by khasim (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:50PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Supping? (Score:2) by Eightyford (893696) on Saturday October 22, @05:07PM (#13853968) (http://eightyford.com/) Supping? As in to take food and especially liquid food into the mouth a little at a time - Websters Okay... [ Reply to ThisRe:Supping? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:24PMRe:Supping? by david duncan scott (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:55PM mysql or postgres (Score:4, Insightful) by ajdlinux (913987) on Saturday October 22, @05:08PM (#13853969) MySQL only became popular because it's faster than postgresql for less complex database work. Postgresql is a better database. I just wonder why SCO went for a deal with MySQL instead of just taking the BSD-licensed Postgres. (I would use postgres myself if my webhost and CMS supported it)Also, mySQL has a totally wrong view of the GPL: see this discussion on debian-legal [debian.org]. Get free domain names [ezyrewards.com] [ Reply to ThisRe:mysql or postgres by 3770 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:18PMRe:mysql or postgres by dedazo (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:36PMRe:mysql or postgres by ajdlinux (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:45PMRe:mysql or postgres by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:50PMRe:mysql or postgres by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:43PMRe:mysql or postgres by dedazo (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @09:12PMRe:mysql or postgres by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @11:44PMRe:mysql or postgres by einhverfr (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:55PM Okay, how about these? (Score:3, Insightful) by 93 Escort Wagon (326346) on Saturday October 22, @05:10PM (#13853983) Gaim has been ported to Windows for some time now, yet I haven't seen one diatribe against the Gaim developers. Shameful!Dolby Labs? They should have revoked Apple's right to use AAC the moment Fairplay came to exist. What a sham!And Cygwin? We should all boycott Red Hat for that deal with the devil. How dare they!Slashdot? They refuse to auto-detect Internet Explorer, and then serve up a blank page in those instances. How two-faced of them! [ Reply to ThisRe:Okay, how about these? by theLOUDroom (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:39PMRe:Okay, how about these? by FST777 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @09:37PMRe:Okay, how about these? by Compenguin (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:46PM Gosh (Score:4, Interesting) by dtfinch (661405) * on Saturday October 22, @05:13PM (#13853996) (http://www.mytsoftware.com/dailyproject/ | Last Journal: Wednesday June 08, @07:22PM) They make it sound like porting mysql to openserver will require a very significant effort. Why would anyone pay for a supposedly unix-ish system that's so much unlike any other that most popular software can't be built on it without significant planning and reworking? I doubt that porting is really such a big deal as that, but still they deemed it worthy of press releases announcing their efforts and partnership. [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. Decisions... (Score:2, Insightful) by Decameron81 (628548) on Saturday October 22, @05:14PM (#13854007) MySQL made a simple business decision... right or wrong is completely subjective here. Eventually they will pay by losing some customers, but appart from that I see no reason why they should be defending their decision.In other words, I don't think that my enemy's friends are my enemies.On top of that, has the author considered that our priorities may be completely irrelevant to someone else? It's not like we can all take care of everything... like destroying Sco, and saving the world, and curing cancer, and feeding the poor, etc, etc, etc. At some point we have to start ignoring some of these priorities. [ Reply to ThisRe:Decisions... by FST777 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @09:41PM Free as in Speech (Score:4, Insightful) by headLITE (171240) on Saturday October 22, @05:32PM (#13854071) (http://notabilis.org/) Since when is giving free software to people running non-free operating systems a _bad_ thing? They're spreading Freedom-as-in-Speech to a world that lacks it. What could _not_ be good about that? They're giving freedom of choice to people that need it. They're infecting SCO users with OSS ideas. Why the fuck would someone who understands the whole OSS idea not like what MySQL is doing here?The key fact some OSS zealots miss is that SCO users only USE products from SCO, they ARE NOT ACTUALLY SCO. Granted, SCO pays MySQL. They're still not who's going to profit from the deal the most. The actual users are going to be. They may be forced to use SCO software. Occam's razor dictates they are because using it voluntarily is, at this time, indefinitely harder to explain.Please stop trying to keep those poor souls from switching to open source software. [ Reply to This WRONG! (Score:5, Insightful) by walterbyrd (182728) on Saturday October 22, @08:29PM (#13854854) MySQL AB is forming a business jpartnership with a company that is dedicated to destroying F/OSS.It is *not* just a simple porting - it is way beyond that.MySQL AB proudly displays on their website the news release about scox and mysqlab will be working together ect. [ Reply to This | Parent Marten Mickos is looking for some solid ground (Score:1) by TarrySingh (916400) on Saturday October 22, @05:34PM (#13854081) (http://tarrysingh.blogspot.com/) and a big goat like SCO can help him with a lawsuit should Larry (Ellison) barge n and buy him (MySQL). [ Reply to This No worries... (Score:1) by 3.2.3 (541843) on Saturday October 22, @05:34PM (#13854082) ...Oracle will have MySQL for breakfast [slashdot.org] soon enough. [ Reply to ThisRe:No worries... by rm69990 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:17PMBe serious. by Aldric (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:26PMRe:Be serious. by 3.2.3 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @09:14PM Brutal to ev1, forgiving to MySQL? (Score:2) by Anthony Boyd (242971) on Saturday October 22, @06:01PM (#13854174) (http://www.outshine.com/) We didn't make the decision lightly; we knew SCO was a sensitive subject with the free software and open source communities. That sounds a lot like saying, "we knew it'd piss them off, but we did it anyway!" Look, I know I'm on the wrong side of this -- Slashdot groupthink is clearly forgiving of this, and I'm just not. But if ev1 had its feet held to the flame, I don't see why MySQL should walk away unscathed. Bottom line: it was a bad decision, and while most of the MySQL users won't care, some do, and they're entitled to vote their conscience. [ Reply to ThisRe:Brutal to ev1, forgiving to MySQL? by Dr.Dubious DDQ (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @10:25PM I can see it now. (Score:1) by stuttering stan (889500) on Saturday October 22, @06:04PM (#13854189) SCO: I hear that you're looking at migrating to another vendor, who is it? Microsoft, Red Hat...?SCO Customer: You're not gonna pull that "AutoZone" crap on me, are you?SCO: No, no, not at all. Hey, aren't you using MySQL for your applications?SCO Customer: Yes, but it's the GPL'ed version, not the one you licences from them.SCO: I think that's something for the courts to decide, after the loooong and expensive discovery process.SCO Customer: WHAT THE...?!?!MySQL: Hey! Why are you harrassing my end-users?SCO: Don't you mean our customers ?MySQL: Huh? Oh yeah, never mind. [ Reply to This Old joke (Score:2) by paj1234 (234750) on Saturday October 22, @06:20PM (#13854252) But if Mickos ever did meet the Devil, he probably wouldn't need an interpreter. [ Reply to This Tupping with the devil (Score:1) by Farrax (83670) on Saturday October 22, @06:34PM (#13854305) He's not supping with the devil, he's tupping [urbandictionary.com] with the devil. [ Reply to This Excusatio non petita, acusatio manifesta (Score:1) by faragon (789704) on Saturday October 22, @06:39PM (#13854326)