| We have been busy, at Continuent. In addition to our usual work with high performance replication, we have addressed usability issues, since we know that a hard-to-use problem, no matter how powerful, has low adoption. Thus, is with some personal satisfaction that I can announce the release of Tungsten Replicator 2.0.3, which comes with several huge improvements in matter of user friendliness. The new installation procedure is so user friendly, in fact, that I was able to build a sophisticated tungsten-sandbox with a 150-line shell script. (The corresponding features … |
Jun
09
2011
Mar
25
2011
Red Hat grows revenue 20%+. Google withholding Honeycomb source code. And more.
Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and
Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have
to.”
# Red Hat reported Q4 revenue up 25% to $245m, FY revenue up 22% to $909m
# Google is withholding the source code to Honeycomb for the foreseeable future.
# Rick Clark explained why he left Rackspace amid concerns that the company is exerting too much control over OpenStack.
# DataStax …
[Read more]
Mar
22
2011
Paranoid Android. Canonical and Gnome. A new OSI. And more.
Paranoid Android
If you are interested in the potential violation of the GPL by
the Android kernel you have probably already immersed yourself in
the numerous blog posts published on the topic. If not, start
with Sean Hogle’s analysis or Bradley M Kuhn’s overview of the original allegations and work
backwards from there, not forgetting a detour for the obligatory Microsoft connection. Linus
Torvalds said
claim “seems totally bogus”. In the meantime, Microsoft …
Jan
11
2011
Black Duck acquires Olliance Group. Funding for Zend and PHP Flog. And more.
Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and
Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have
to.”
# Black Duck Software acquired Olliance Group.
# Viola Private Equity invested $7m in Zend Technologies.
# PHP Fog raised $1.8m from Madrona Venture Group, First Round Capital, Founder’s Co-op, and other angel investors.
# The proposal for CPTN Holdings to acquire Novell’s patents has …
[Read more]
Dec
03
2010
|
There is much talk about MySQL forks and how they are going
to replace MySQL, or take over MySQL user base, or become
more powerful/profitable/popular/you-name-it than MySQL
itself. Let's clear some air on this topic. There is more about forks than meets the eye, especially if you think about a few obvious facts. What's a fork? According to Wikipedia a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software. |
By this definition, when someone who doesn't work at the MySQL project distributes a package that is based on MySQL code but differs …
[Read more]
Nov
05
2010
A catchy headline, and I believe more accurate than Oracle Puts the Squeeze on SMBs with MySQL Price Hike (Network World) and MySQL price hikes reveal depth of Oracle’s wallet love [MySQL Jacking up MySQL Prices] (The Register). Slightly more realistic is Oracle kills low-priced MySQL support (again The Register).
First, let’s review what Oracle has actually done: they ditched the MySQL enterprise Basic and Silver offerings. For Oracle, that makes sense. Their intended client base is “enterprise” (high end, think big corporates) and their MySQL sales and cost structure reflects this. It’s not a new thing that came with MySQL at Oracle, because MySQL at Sun …
[Read more]
May
17
2010
In my time at MySQL AB in the Community Relations possition (2004-2006) I wrote several articles on MySQL’s licensing for the MySQL web site. The core reason for having to explain anything was (and still is) the dual licensing of MySQL, in particular the client library. I left MySQL AB years ago, but people still ask me licensing questions. Below is an excerpt from one such question, and my response.
> Hi, Found a post on the mysql website from Arjen Lentz to do
with the whole
> mysql licensing question.
> Do you know if the issue with, php scripts (that use a mysql
database) issued
> under a proprietary license require you to have a commercial
license for
> mysql, or will the issues be covered for the GPL version
through the fact
> that the scripts run via php which in-turn connects to the
GPL mysql server
> for which the FOSS exception applies.
Note: I am not a …
[Read more]
Mar
17
2010
Mark Callaghan asks Can a protocol be GPL?, after finding a
disturbing comment in a source file: Any re-implementations of
this protocol must also be under GPL, unless one has got an
license from MySQL AB stating otherwise.
I recall talking with one of the company lawyers about this
matter, and he assured me that the GPL can't be used for a
protocol, and that's why this notice was dropped from MySQL.com
site a few years ago, even before the Sun acquisition.
This is thus an embarrassing piece of ancient history (which will
hopefully be removed soon) that has been in our files for
long time. For how long?
If we get the source trees from the public bazaar …
Mar
16
2010
Over in the blog post High Availability MySQL: Can a Protocol be
GPL? Mark Callahan found the following comment in the source
file sql/net_serv.c
This file is the net layer API for the MySQL client/server
protocol, which is a tightly coupled, proprietary protocol owned
by MySQL AB. Any re-implementations of this protocol must also be
under GPL, unless one has got an license from MySQL AB stating
otherwise.
I am second to few in being a fan and a proponent of the GPL.
However, this claim in this comment is utterly bogus. It
dates back to willful misunderstanding and FUD spreading and the
desire to strong-arm the sale of licenses on the part some people
at the old MySQL AB company.
If license of source code followed network protocol of running
implementation (which stretches "derived work" to an extent even …
Feb
05
2010
Topics for this podcast:
*Matt Asay moves from Alfresco to Canonical
*GPL fade fuels heated discussion
*Apple’s iPad and its enterprise and open source impact
*Open source in data warehousing and storage
*Our perspective on Oracle’s plans for Sun open source
iTunes or direct download (32:50, 9.2 MB)