MontyfromMySQLwantsopenness

On Fabrizio's blog (Funambol), we can see a comment from Monty about the MySQL affair:

" An important point that you are ignoring is what makes open source software successful:

• No software lock in; If something doesn't exist or doesn't work you can fix it
• No vendor lock in; If a software vendor goes out of business or gets too unreasonable you can change the vendor
• More users with makes the code more tested
• More developers, which gives the software longer lifetime and increases innovation.
• As long as you are a community driven open source project, there is little chance that the code will be forked into multiple projects

There are a lots of other reasons, but all have the same thing in common; As soon as you close one critical part of the software, the line between closed source and open source disappears together with many of the prior advantages. You become a vendor that makes crippleware. No one really wants to use crippleware and while people try to portray it as balancing open source ideals with business sense, it doesn't.

I am absolutely sure that MySQL would never have been a success if the MySQL server or other offerings would have been crippleware from the start. Changing the server to crippleware now and exchange growth and adaption for money is not something that I think is in Sun's interest.

I agree that one needs to make money, but that should be done by proprietary services, not on software.

For Sun in particular this is not that hard as Sun can package the MySQL offerings into it's other offerings and sell a complete stack with support and other services. Sun can take MySQL to new kinds of customers, and has channels that MySQL AB did not. There are many new compelling offerings and business opportunities to be made, without having to go to crippleware.

You can find more things about this topic on my blog at: http://monty-says.blogspot.com

Monty Former CTO of MySQL AB, now with Sun's CTO Organisation "