Refining MySQL Community Server
Back in October 2006, we introduced MySQL Community Server. Since then, we’ve learnt a thing or two, spent many man hours discussing how to improve our processes, and are now refining the concept. We feel that we’ve come up with some good middle-ground that fulfils not only our company interests but fosters community use and growth as well.
The changes are in the areas of release policy and stability of MySQL Community Server and in the availability of MySQL Enterprise Server.
The changes start from the question: “How can we better target MySQL Community Server to the community and MySQL Enterprise Server to the paying customers?“. Many of them originate from our ongoing discussions with the Linux Distributions, some of whom have been distributing MySQL Enterprise Server to their user base, since MySQL Community Server hasn’t conformed to their needs of feature stability and release schedule.
Our intention is for MySQL Community Server to be very good, and for MySQL Enterprise Server to provide further value on top of that. The five changes, in short, are:
- New features and community contributions will go into the next development tree. The new features will not be applied to a current GA release, ensuring stability for the Community Server. At the time of writing, the development tree is MySQL 5.2.
- There will be at least two yearly “mature GA” (currently MySQL 5.0) binary builds. They aren’t scheduled, but usually triggered by grave security vulnerabilities.
- When a version of MySQL initially goes GA (as 5.1 soon will), the company will release binary builds of the new GA product every month for a period of several months until it reaches a point of suitable stability/maturity to be considered a “mature GA” release — as described above.
- There will be four yearly “mature GA” (currently MySQL 5.0) source releases, predictably scheduled, to be released once every quarter. These will be ideal for use by distributions shipping MySQL.
- The current Enterprise source tarballs will be removed from ftp.mysql.com. These will move to enterprise.mysql.com, and will be available for our paying subscribers only.
Let me expand upon the first and the last items.
Community contributions: As I know this is a topic important to our contributors and potential contributors, let me provide an example. I confess: We’ve been bad at incorporating new features. We haven’t entered much more significant than SHOW PROFILE, and it took many months and several builds to mature. And we cannot continue with this practice of applying patches to a stable release, because new features will destabilise the release. That’s what we’ve been hearing from both distributions and contributors. We’re listening, and we’re learning. By no longer going for the impossible (adding features to a feature frozen release), we hope to change this dynamic for the better.
Enterprise source code availability: I expect three questions, “Why?“, “Does this conform with the GPL?” and “What keeps a paying customer from building and posting Enterprise binaries?“. The rationale is to underline the positioning goal of “Community Server for community users, Enterprise Server for paying users”. And the GPL requires us (like anybody else) to hand out the code to those whom we give the binaries, which in the case of MySQL Enterprise Server is just the customers. So it does conform to the GPL, something that we’ve verified with the FSF to eliminate any doubt. And as for the third expected question, the answer is “Nothing”. Still, we feel that most business users will see the value of a MySQL Enterprise subscription that offers regularly-reliable software updates directly from the ’source’, along with premium 24×7 technical support and proactive monitoring/advisory tools.
To finish off, let me repeat a number of basic facts which stay unchanged:
- both the Enterprise Server and the Community Server remain licensed under the GPLv2
- MySQL Enterprise Server has Monthly Rapid Updates (MRUs) and Quarterly Service Packs (QSPs), i.e. binaries delivered to our customers; building these binaries is a service for paying customers only
- bugs are first fixed in MySQL Enterprise Server builds, and while updates are delivered quicker and more frequently to paying customers, bug fixes are also added to the next source and binary builds of MySQL Community Server as stated above
- when scheduled, we build Community binaries for all platforms
- community binaries and sources are still available for download at dev.mysql.com/downloads
- all source trees are still available via BitKeeper
- the Enterprise Server is close to a full subset of the Community Server
With these changes that are intended to simplify life for the Linux Distributions that distribute MySQL, we hope to better serve the MySQL user base, while continuing to provide additional value to our paying customers in the form of more frequent, scheduled binary bug fix releases.
If you have any questions with regards to this, please do not hesitate to reply via email to community@mysql.com.
August 8th, 2007 at 15:26
[…] YouTube Contact the Webmaster Link to Article linux Refining MySQL Community Server » Posted at Kaj Arnö’s blog on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Back in October 2006, we introduced MySQL Community Server … originate from our ongoing discussions with the Linux Distributions, some of whom View Original Article » […]
August 9th, 2007 at 0:07
[…] But, according to the new changes to the release policy in the availability of both MySQL community and enterprise editions, MySQL will no longer make the source tar balls available to regular community releases, instead available to enterprise paying customers and there will be four yearly source tar balls available for community releases. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 6:31
[…] Mike Kruckenberg, well-respected community member recently blogged about MySQL taking another step (away from open source, and I’d like to refute some of his worries. In fact, this is really more to drive away from what some within the community think is not kosher, i.e. change #5 in Kaj’s blog entry. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 6:58
[…] Current clarification of Enterprise/Community split http://www.planetmysql.org/kaj/?p=123 […]
August 9th, 2007 at 7:16
[…] Mike Kruckenberg, well-respected community member recently blogged about MySQL taking another step (away from open source, and I’d like to refute some of his worries. In fact, this is really more to drive away from what some within the community think is not kosher, i.e. change #5 in Kaj’s blog entry. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 10:23
Refining MySQL Community Server
Different things can be said about
Kaj Arno’s , Refining MySQL Community Server but given the fact that the source will continue to be freely available from Bitkeeper I see no issues apart from a possible growth in real community MySQL with real…
August 9th, 2007 at 11:30
[…] Mike Kruckenberg, well-respected community member recently blogged about MySQL taking another step (away from open source, and I’d like to refute some of his worries. In fact, this is really more to drive away from what some within the community think is not kosher, i.e. change #5 in Kaj’s blog entry. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 11:56
[…] Wie Kaj Arnö, Vizepräsident von MySQL in seinem Blog schreibt, beabsichtigt die Firma MySQL die .tar.gz Dateien mit dem Sourcecode der Enterprise Version der MySQL Datenbank vom FTP Server http://ftp.mysql.com zu entfernen. Der Sourcode soll in Zukunft nur noch Kunden von MySQL zur Verfügung gestellt werden. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 14:23
[…] In dem Blogeintrag “Refining MySQL Community Server“, erklärt MySQL-Vizepräsident Kaj Arnö, dass die Quellen des MySQL-Enterprise-Produkts nur noch zahlenden Kunden zur Verfügung stehen werden. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 17:29
[…] Les annonces faites par Kaj ont secoué un peu la communauté avec des réactions assez forte de ses membres actifs. Je vous laisserez les lire en détails sur son blog. Mais voila l’idée générale: […]
August 9th, 2007 at 18:00
Many of us who voluntarily test the releases which were previously available on the ftp site in order to log bugs & patches will now be shut off. Some examples of this kind of activity are in these bugs:
28400 Failed mysql_client_test test_fetch_long
28358 libmysql.dll cannot be dynamically loaded on Windows
21635 expression cols (the note that it was not fixed in 5.0.32)
There are many more bugs like this of course - these are just 3 examples.
The BitKeeper source is not relevant for this work. It’s great for those who want to play with up-to-the-minute “maybe it will build and run” source code, but not for those of us who want to rigorously test a MySQL release *after* the MySQL in-house QA does its work.
This weakens the claim that the Enterprise version “benefits from the large MySQL community”. Enterprise releases will still enjoy testing by MySQL in-house QA (…who seem to do a very fine job of it, btw…) - but the “large community” testing benefit won’t really happen until the source code for a release becomes available to the “large community”. It sounds like this will only happen quarterly now. The Enterprise customers will need to find and/or annotate bugs like those above - or else wait until the community gains access to the release to do it for them.
It is also discouraging to the volunteer community to be in the dark about the exact content of MySQL releases for several months. No one wants to invest hours into reproducing a bug and developing a patch, only to find out it was not really relevant to the next release.
Intended or not, delaying access to MySQL releases will *feel* more like closed-source software, even though - as you point out - it isn’t technically closed source. Rather than donating a lot of time and effort to testing 5.0.46, 5.0.47, etc. - the community must sit and wait for 5.0.49 (or whatever the next available release is) several months down the road. To the extent that MySQL depends on the motivation and enthusiasm of its volunteers, this could hurt.
August 9th, 2007 at 18:44
[…] For the past few months I have been providing “Red Hat”-style RPMs of the newest MySQL versions, including the Enterprise-only releases. Unfortunately it looks like that practice is going to come to an end. The developers of MySQL have decided to change the release policy of the Community version and the availability policy of the Enterprise sources (Source: Refining MySQL Community Server). […]
August 9th, 2007 at 21:02
[…] release schedule of community server (”Mature GA”, meaning 5.0, will have approximately 4 source builds per year and 2 binary builds; new GA, meaning 5.1, will have a binary build once per month) These refinements of the community server [process] are detailed in Kaj Arnö’s blog. Not everyone is happy about the new plan for acceptance of community contributions, because it means that community enhancements have to wait a long time to see the light of day. Jeremy Cole has talked about the frustrations that this causes and calls the Enterprise/Community split a failure. These refinements are interesting are definitely worthy of discussion, but I’ll leave that aside for another time. ¶ What’s wrapped up inside of the announcement about “Refining Community Server” is something not related to Community Server at all: “The current Enterprise source tarballs will be removed from http://ftp.mysql.com.” Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels a lot like what often happens in political bills, where a politician tries to add 4 good things and squeeze in one bad thing in the same bill. They are either hoping that no one will notice, or that perhaps it’s an easier pill to take when a little sugar is applied. Kaj responded to Jeremy with the expected response of “not much changed” and “it’s for the better anyway” message. But it’s worth taking a closer look. ¶ Placing the source tarballs behind a closed door doesn’t keep it closed with the GPL. Everyone knows (and Kaj acknowledges) that the GPL guarantees the right of any person who receives a binary to obtain and re-distribute the source tarballs to the world. So what’s the big deal about hiding Enterprise source tarballs behind a password-protected site that only customers can access? ¶ It’s about the importance of being earnest in what you do. Being an open source company is about a lot more than just slapping a GPL license on your software and handing it out. It’s about building a relationship with the community that is using, playing, testing, and improving your software. As anyone who is married knows well, this can only be done through ongoing, continual trust and transparency between the two parties. Trust is built by being dependable, and by telling the other person things that sound honest and real. Trust is improved by transparency, which is opening yourself to the other person. Adding an artificial means of inconvenience to the community in obtaining bits does nothing to help customers and only reduces transparency as seen by the community. ¶ MySQL has a goal of of positioning their software as: “Community Server for community users, Enterprise Server for paying users”. This makes sense from a marketing and sales perspective, and I have no argument with it at that level. After all, companies deserve to make money for their efforts, and customers need to understand what they are paying for when they buy Enterprise Server. They get a great deal for a cheap cost when they buy a license, because it includes all kinds of services: updates, technical alerts, technical support, troubleshooting, assistance with tuning, and many other services. They are also getting cool features and stability which came as a direct result of feedback from the community. Most of all, customers are paying for the comfort in knowing they have an experienced team to call and help when they have a problem. But customers aren’t paying for bits. The bits are Free Software and infinitely re-distributable, so there isn’t any money to be made by trying to make bits appear part of the sale. ¶ From a technical standpoint, dividing source code based on “paying customers” and “community” simply doesn’t make any sense. Customers want source code typically for one reason: “just in case” (in case your company disappears). Community wants source code to learn from, experiment with, play with, improve, fix, argue about, comment on, and many other things. The division of code drives down the quality of the Enterprise Edition for customers, and it drives down the motivation of the community to provide the necessary feedback and improvements. ¶ As the transparency decreases, the distrust increases. On the #mysql-dev IRC channel yesterday, I worried about what might happen if the current transparency continues to decrease and MySQL decides some day to release their Enterprise Server code under a proprietary license instead of the GPL. Where will that leave the community, if they know that the work they help to provide under the Community Server gets repackaged at a later date under a proprietary Enterprise Server? Kaj quickly responded by saying he personally would commit to keeping it open. ¶ [13:46] <cheyer> kaj: are you willing to commit that MySQL does not have any intention to change the license for Enterprise to a non-open source license in the near future? [13:46] <kaj> cheyer: I am Much to Kaj’s credit, he did indeed address this in his blog today. But would MySQL AB be willing to publicly commit to this as a company by placing a statement on their web site? That is not so clear. ¶ [13:47] <cheyer> kaj: is MySQL willing to publicly state on their web site that they commit to keeping all source code for MySQL Server open source? [13:47] <cheyer> (including Enterprise Edition) [14:20] <cheyer> kaj: public URL supporting your statement about not changing the license? [14:23] <kaj> cheyer: I’ll look into it MySQL AB has been working with the open source community for a long time and a lot of good things have been accomplished as a result of that. There is much to applaud. Along the way, there have been occasional mistakes, and this is one of those times. MySQL risks alienating a community that has been very supportive of them by a misguided move in in their quest to “get more customers”. Make money, make as much as you can, but while you do, don’t forget the lesson of being earnest in your endeavors and staying true to your community. ¶ […]
August 9th, 2007 at 21:27
[…] Kaj Arnö, the company’s vice president of community relations, wrote that the Enterprise tarballs “will be removed from http://ftp.mysql.com. These will move to enterprise.mysql.com, and will be available for our paying subscribers only.” Customers will also be able to get the source out of the MySQL BitKeeper repository, but it will no longer be available as a source tarball. […]
August 9th, 2007 at 22:22
קוד המקור של MySQL Enterprise למנויים בלבד
חברת MySQL AB, מפתחת מסד הנתונים החופשי MySQL, הודיעה כי קוד המקור של MySQL Enterprise יהיה זמין ללקוחות משלמים בלבד.
August 10th, 2007 at 0:10
[…] Kaj posted an official announcement the other day which changes their Open Source binary distribution model. Back in October 2006, we introduced MySQL Community Server. Since then, we’ve learnt a thing or two, spent many man hours discussing how to improve our processes, and are now refining the concept. We feel that we’ve come up with some good middle-ground that fulfils not only our company interests but fosters community use and growth as well. […]
August 10th, 2007 at 10:02
[…] Here is the blog link from MySQL’s Kaj Arnö (http://www.planetmysql.org/kaj/?p=123). […]
August 10th, 2007 at 10:30
[…] Here is the blog link from MySQL’s Kaj Arnö. […]
August 10th, 2007 at 15:53
[…] Another Reason Why MySQL Gets It Posted by Savio Rodrigues under MySQL , Open Source There has been some discussion aboutMySQL’s recent moves to clarify the targeting between MySQL Community Server & MySQL Enterprise Server. Essentially, MySQL wants to make it clear(er) that Community Server is free and for those of us who are willing to “spend time to save money”. Community Server is the version that will be made available to Linux distros and passed on to customers that use MySQL inside of their Linux distro without support. Enterprise server is for paying customers; those of you willing to “spend money to save time”. The source for Enterprise Server will no longer be publicly available unless you are a paying customer. This is 100% in keeping with the GPL (as you have to provide source to the customers you provide the binaries to). There is nothing that prevents a paying MySQL Enterprise customer from posting the source for the broader community to see/use. […]
August 10th, 2007 at 19:01
[…] Biggest news of the week was change in policies and availability of MySQL products - community server and enterprise server. it all started with Kaj Arnö’s post on his “MySQL AB VP Community Whereabouts in a Nutshell”. […]
August 11th, 2007 at 20:50
[…] MySQL AB has announced some changes in the way it handles the Community and Enterprise releases of MySQL. From the post: […]
August 12th, 2007 at 21:52
[…] Kaj Arno, who heads mySQL community efforts, writes this week that Community users will get four updates per year, while paying Enterprise customers get Monthly Rapid Updates (MRUs) and Quarterly Service Packs (QSPs).They will also get bug fixes first. […]
August 12th, 2007 at 23:42
[…] MySQL AB’s recent changes to the Community/Enterprise split have made people go as far as calling the split a failure. I don’t think it’s working well either, but it could be fixed. Here’s what I think would make Enterprise a compelling offer. […]
August 13th, 2007 at 21:19
[…] Jump forward to the most recent announcements. Once again we got an early look at the changes, and once again, we voiced our concerns. This time it basically amounted to “Is taking away the Enterprise source supposed to convince people to buy Enterprise?” Their answer was “Yep”. Our only response could be “Uh, good luck with that.” Once again, our concerns mostly centered around whether the Enterprise product made sense, and once again we said that it didn’t. We told them flat out that a single person mirroring the code would nullify all the “force people to buy” effects of their removal of the source, while nullifying none of the good will they lose by hiding it. […]
August 15th, 2007 at 2:06
[…] http://www.planetmysql.org/kaj/?p=123 […]
August 15th, 2007 at 5:21
[…] It appears that MySQL is hiding its Enterprise source code. In the article, Kaj Arnö attempts to make clear that the Community Builds (aka free builds) will still be available in all their forms. But, the real key is that the Tarballs, the bundles of code that were easily accessible, are being moved from the public FTP to the enterprise server. […]
August 15th, 2007 at 9:21
java.org »
http://javam.org/mysql-kapaniyor/
MySQL kapanıyor !!!
MySQL kaynak kodu enterprise’a eklenerek ücretli hale getirildi.
Özetle:
* Açık kaynak topluluğu kendi haline bırakılacak
* Para ödeyen enterprise kullanıcılarına öncelik verilip onların dertleriyle ilgilenilecek…
August 15th, 2007 at 16:27
MySQL Moves to Paid Tarball
It turns out that the MySQL group has decided it to be a good idea to remove the source tar-balls from their community site and only make that available to paid subscribers.
Read more from: http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2007/08/14/mysql_tarball_communit
August 15th, 2007 at 21:04
[…] The Register’s Developer section has a good overview, and MySQL’s own Kaj Arnö explains on his own blog. […]
August 21st, 2007 at 8:20
[…] Oczywiście kod, który pozostaje na licencji GNU GPLv2, musi być dostępny w postaci źródeł, ale firma przekonuje, że ma ten obowiązek wyłącznie wobec klientów, ponieważ tylko im dostarcza binaria. Dla pozostałych jest wersja Community Server. Firma wprowadziła jeszcze kilka innych zmian w dotychczasowej praktyce, ale kontrowersje wywołało tylko zniknięcie paczek Enterprise z publicznego serwera http://FTP. […]
August 21st, 2007 at 10:31
[…] Oczywiście kod, który pozostaje na licencji GNU GPLv2, musi być dostępny w postaci źródeł, ale firma przekonuje, że ma ten obowiązek wyłącznie wobec klientów, ponieważ tylko im dostarcza binaria. Dla pozostałych jest wersja Community Server. Firma wprowadziła jeszcze kilka innych zmian w dotychczasowej praktyce, ale kontrowersje wywołało tylko zniknięcie paczek Enterprise z publicznego serwera http://FTP. […]
November 3rd, 2007 at 17:09
MySQL AB has announced some changes in the way it handles the Community and Enterprise releases of MySQL.