MySQL High End Features Should be Closed Source & for Paid Customers Only
I am serious. While MySQL is a great open source database, I have full respect to Sun's plan to provide high-end features for paying customers only. After all they are in the business of making money and not philanthropy, last I checked.
Why is the blogosphere and MySQL community up in arms against the move? I think it is extremely selfish to try to force Sun to abort its plan of providing high-end features for paid customers only. Any paid customer of MySQL would welcome the move and, as expected freeloaders will disagree. But who cares? After all most of the freeloaders don't contribute a dime.
The best thing Sun can do is offer high end features free to significant source code contributors to MySQL codebase or community.
Do you disagree? Let me know why.
Filed under Company, Database, Headline News, MySQL, RDBMS, Sun, Web | 
| 
RSS 2.0 |
Trackback this Article
| 
Email this Article
You may also like to read |
April 20th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I’m generally ambivalent. I support free software/open source (money and code). I’ll be interested to see what the features are, and whether similar features are prevented from being committed to the base?
“Any paid customer of MySQL would welcome the move”
We’re a paid customer. In general, the feeling I get from other people who depend commercially on open projects is that we would rather (and do) make donations and contributions public because the shared infrastructure makes us more efficient.
But, we’re not Sun or Microsoft. We’re small software companies. So, reducing the barriers to entry in our markets, reducing the market inefficiencies, is in our best interest.
But, I’m with you on the melodrama. What’s that all about?