[tentonova]

I'm firmly disagree with Monty's duplicity, but I'll try to shed some light on it.

The "big deal" is that only two things provide a revenue stream around MySQL sufficient to support the heavy R&D costs associated with building a database product:

- The name ("MySQL")

- The copyright.

If you own the name, you can sell branded binaries and services. If you own the copyright, you can sell non-GPL licenses to commercial interests. Without these, creating a viable revenue stream is incredibly difficult.

I think this ties into this discussion, as well: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028638 -- I Love the GPL (Except When it Applies to Me)

[gaius]

Without these, creating a viable revenue stream is incredibly difficult.

Yes, and Monty knew that when he chose to structure MySQL the product that way. Everything is proceeding exactly as he foresaw and intended.

[tentonova]

I agree -- and I think Monty has no business taking umbrage with the bed he's made -- but it's worth exploring why this is the case.

[euroclydon]

Would it be fair to speculate that he never foresaw the largest proprietary DB vendor eventually buying MySql?

[IgorPartola]

The only thing we can speculate about is what we would have done in his shoes, unless he provides a convincing insight. If it was me, and I cared about a project of mine for the sake of the project and thought it was a vital project (as opposed to one of my tinker toys), I would have open sources the whole thing, no dual license. That way nobody can "steal" it from the community, by buying some company. I would also have tried to give it to someone like the Apache Foundation, so that when I die, my project does not.

On the other hand, if I thought my project was going to be a cash cow, I would have done exactly what Monty did, except the whining after the fact. I think if I buy a car, then sell it to someone and that person sells it later to my arch nemesis for a discount and he plans on wrecking the heck out of it, my screaming about how this is not right is not going to attract many supporters, is it?

[tptacek]

When you say "I would have open sourced the whole thing", what you really mean is "I would have BSD-licensed the whole thing". There is no difference between dual-licensed GPL code and straight-up GPL code. In both cases, your rights as an end-user are identical. In neither case can you pick up the codebase after it's sold to Sun and start a new commercial endeavor on it that isn't GPL'd.

[tptacek]

What happened to MySQL isn't a consequence of the GPL. It's a consequence of MySQL selling out to Sun. About the worst you can say about the GPL in this situation is that the GPL made MySQL much more attractive to Sun.