[Bulk]From another group: Help save MySQL

[Robert Brockway]

On Sun, 3 Jan 2010, Stephen wrote:

> Can someone explain how Oracle can threaten an Open Source database?

Hi Stephen.  The argument pertains to 'mind share'.

First off it is worth noting that MySQL is distributed under a dual 
licencing model.  MySQL AB (the company) and its successors required 
reassignment of copyright to the company for any contributions.  This is 
so that they are free to release the code under a non-OSS licence without 
having to seek the permission of other copyright holders.  This 
arrangement is fairly unusual among OSS projects but it seems to have 
worked well for MySQL up to this point.

The copyright holder could choose to only release future versions under a 
closed source licence but that would still leave current & past versions 
OSS.

Sun currently owns the name MySQL, associated images, trademarks and 
parents.  This would all go to Oracle in the purchase.

> Can someone, like me, not just grab all the source code and use it as I 
> please, subject to the GPL?

If Oracle decided not to release MySQL under an OSS licence in the future 
then a code forked version could of course continue under an OSS licence 
but it would do so under a new name.

There is an argument (that I don't necessarily agree with) that a code 
forked version is at a disadvantage because the name as mind share, 
especially among those who are not OSS geeks.  I'm not convinced this is a 
big problem as plenty of projects have forked (under new names) and taken 
a good deal of the developer and user community with them.  Examples in 
clude OpenBSD forking from NetBSD & LedgerSMB forking from SQL-Ledger.  In 
effect developers and users find the tool that fits their needs and they 
use it.

> I did read mention of patents. Is this the issue?

I believe it could be an issue if the patent holder (Sun/Oracle) decided 
to use the patent against a forked project.  My understanding is that 
merely failing to defend a patent eventually invalidates it so it is 
unclear to me if the patent threat is real.

In any case I think the current patent system has so many problems that I 
believe a lot of corporations are acting like we have a working patent 
system when I'm not convinced it is working at all.  It's been estimated 
that any sizable software project is violating a patent somewhere since 
there are so many these days and they are so easy to get.

> How can patents come out of an open source project?

I'm not even going to attempt to answer that ;)

IANAL.

Rob

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