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MySQL licensing redux
After all the fuss it appears that MySQL will be remaining open source after all. As Kaj Arno and Monty Widenius report, Marten Mickos announced at CommunityOne that the MySQL Server will stay open source, as well as the forthcoming encryption and compression backup features, which MySQL had considered making available only to paying customers.
“The change comes from MySQL now being part of Sun Microsystems. Our initial plans were made for a company considering an IPO, but made less sense in the context of Sun, a large company with a whole family of complementary open source software and hardware products,” writes Kaj.
“My hope is that the experiment when it comes to closed source extensions developed by Sun is now ended. As far as I know, there is no existing plans for any closed source extensions to the MySQL server,” adds Monty.
While that seems pretty clear cut, there is still room for a little confusion. Kaj writes: “To financially support MySQL?s free and open source platform, we have a business model which allows both community and commercial add-ons, and we remain committed to it.”
Monty clarifies: “I interpret this, in the context of Mårten’s and Jonathan’s announcements, that we will continue to support and make available commercial addons to the MySQL server from third party, like the Infobright storage engine. Things that we develop ourselves at Sun, at least on the server, will continue to be open source.”
UPDATE - The phrase “at least on the server” is revealing, however. Matt Asay points out that MySQL will continue to develop commercial add-ons above the server, which is the direction as I understand it, and - as I noted two weeks ago - has been the direction for some time. - UPDATE
While we’re on the subject of MySQL (again) it’s also worth taking a look at the slides (PDF) from Monty Widenius’s “Future Design Hurdles to Tackle in the MySQL Server” presentation at the recent MySQL Conference and Expo.
The slides provide a fascinating insight into the technical challenges Sun and MySQL face in positioning MySQL for wider adoption, as well as evidence of the intention to be more open, both about the nature of the challenges and in accepting more contributions from outside the company.
As slide 18 states, the fact that the MySQL community is not currently contributing to development means that the project is not benefiting from the experience of real-world users and that the user base is growing slowly.
The suggested solution is to open up the development process to give outside developers commit and decision rights and to learn from how PostgreSQL is developed. I previously wrote that “if MySQL does choose to develop closed source extensions to the GPL code it will probably have to find some way of balancing that with providing more value to the community.”
It would appear that the development of close source extensions is no longer an issue, but that providing more value to the user community remains a priority. Sun has gained a lot in acquiring MySQL, but one thing it hasn’t gained is an understanding of building a wider developer community. In fact, MySQL has a lot to learn from Sun in that regard - both its successes and its failures.
Sun is serious about Open Source and the MySQL Community
As we walked into the restaurant I saw a face that I thought was familiar. Jonathan and Rich were standing outside the restaurant talking. However, only when we got inside did I hear Jay saying that that was Jonathan Schwartz.
So just before we all took our places, and while we were trying to work out how we were going to organize payment for the dinner, Rich and Jonathan turned up and quickly ended the discussion. Rich said his credit card would be good for the tab. So thanks to Sun for that!
But besides good food and plenty to drink, it was a great opportunity to talk and ask some questions that have been on my mind since the acquisition of MySQL by Sun. I have expressed these concerns on this blog, and they can be summarized as follows:
How important is open source, and in particular the MySQL community to Sun?
Both Rich and Jonathan were able to give me an adequate answer to this question. I will summarize this in my own words.
Sun bought MySQL to expand its business and influence in the open source world. So the MySQL community is the key to this.
I believe this means that Sun is not interested in commercializing any parts of the MySQL server, and here I am referring to the massive discussion that has resulted from the announcement MySQL to launch new features only in MySQL Enterprise on Jeremy Cole's blog. After all, it is clear that MySQL's bottom line (although profitable) makes no difference to Sun. They are interested in access to the over 10 million users of MySQL to sell services and hardware, those things that Sun already does well.
It is the MySQL's task to expand the user base, not endanger it. So I think we will see a change of strategy in the coming weeks and months.
And I can add the following: from what I have seen of it, MySQL's enterprise offering is really a great package without having to add a proprietary version of the server. It has everything a serious user of MySQL wants: 24 hour support, monitoring tools, design tools, service packs and priority bug fixing. And with Sun's backing, nobody doubts anymore that they can deliver this service.
Jonathan and Rich clearly demonstrated their support for the MySQL community by coming to the dinner. Besides clearing up some important questions, it was a great photo op.:
You may have seen this photo already on Ronald's blog. The picture is of Jonathan and I with the PrimBase Technologies conference T-shirt. If you look closely you will see another little detail. I have a dolphin in my pocket! I wonder if that has any symbolic meaning...
Jonathan tells a great story on his blog. But what is significant is the picture of Monty he posted, who is wearing a shirt that says "my free software runs your company". We have every reason to believe Jonathan fully supports this sentiment. So note that the T-shirt does not say "my partially free software ..."!
Oh, and in the picture of Monty, do you recognize the shirt of the person standing next to him? Since I generally only wear a shirt once, we know that this picture was also taking at the Community Dinner.
Sun Buys MySQL for $1B and Wall Street Mourns
Sun Microsystems said today it would pay $1 billion to buy privately held open-source database maker MySQL, a move that strengthens Sun’s ability to offer an alternative to proprietary software. The purchase, while smaller than the $8.5 billion Oracle-BEA deal that was also unveiled today, is notable because MySQL was a highly anticipated IPO candidate, and had long rebuffed suitors interested in buying it.
For other technology firms planning IPOs, the deal may be as welcome as a kick in the head. While 58 technology firms went public in the last 12 months, the market began to soften in the final quarter, with companies such as Classmates.com and Applied Precision pulling their plans for public offerings and only strong contenders, such as NetSuite, managing to make it out the door. Indeed, Peter Falvey, a managing director with tech investment bank Revolution Partners, says 2008 isn’t looking good for the tech IPO market.
“Volatile markets are lousy for high-growth tech IPOs, and I think the markets are going to be choppy for some time,” Falvey told me this morning. “The tech stocks have gotten hammered, and I think public company investors will be looking to be more conservative in 2008. Companies will continue to file and be ready in case the window opens, but I think [the] first half of 2008 is going to be soft.”
Sun (JAVA) has agreed to pay $800 million in cash and assume $200 million in options for MySQL, which had raised $38.5 million from venture and strategic investors including Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, SAP, Intel Capital and Red Hat. Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz explains in his blog that the deal gives Sun a product in the $15 billion-a-year database market; it’s also the final piece needed for Sun’s open-source operating system for the Internet.
So why is this important for the internet? Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There’s opportunity everywhere.
MySQL and its development community are behind the deal. MySQL Chairman (and venture backer) Kevin Harvey said it gives MySQL customers “one-stop shopping for all of their Web 2.0 infrastructure.”
MySQL is the database for many of the new economy’s hottest companies, including Google and Facebook. For Sun, it not only closes a gap in the company’s open-source software plans, but offers a way to sell Sun hardware to the current generation of startups.
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