Jetlagged from transatlantic travel, I woke up in the middle of the Californian night thinking about what has changed since I arrived at the MySQL Conference in Santa Clara on Sunday evening. I was pondering all the questions MySQL users and Sun colleagues were asking at the event, and what the user base was thinking out loud on Twitter yesterday.

What has changed is obviously that Sun Microsystems and Oracle announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun.

What further changes we will see as a result of that is a different story. Evidently, I don’t sit in with a crystal ball predicting what will happen next. Nor do I have insight into Oracle’s plans for MySQL, once the deal is closed. Nor am I even in a position to comment upon the acquisition, so I won’t do it.

However, what I do know and what I can say is what has not changed with MySQL:

1. There still is a huge base of MySQL users out there. They have economic interests that are independent of whoever owns MySQL. The users in the MySQL community come in all flavors, ranging from casual users to those who intimately know the inner workings of MySQL and have contributed to the code base.
2. There still is a huge talent pool of MySQL experts in Sun Microsystems, in Support, in Consulting, in Training, in Engineering, in other parts of Sun. They have a strong loyalty towards the MySQL users they have served over many years.
3. MySQL is still licensed under the GPL. The GPL license used to form a safety net for the users not certain about whether MySQL AB would follow the spirit of Open Source. It continued to be so with Sun Microsystems. And the Open Source license continues to provide a safety net for its user base, regardless of the owner of MySQL.
4. MySQL has founders, one in particular, who still haven’t fallen off the face of the planet. Moreover, their passion for MySQL and its users continues.
5. Sun Microsystems still is a separate legal entity, practising what’s known as “business as usual“. This is familiar to MySQLers from the time between Sun’s acquisition of MySQL was announced mid-January 2008 to the closing at the end of February 2008. During the period between announcement and closing, we continue to behave as separate entities, even competing with each other.
6. Part of Business as Usual is a number of product announcements at the MySQL Conference this week. I’m looking forward to these!

While I cannot and will not personally speculate about what happens next, nor about Oracle’s intentions with MySQL, I think our users are looking to what the names most inimately associated with MySQL are saying — even if they no longer work for Sun Microsystems:

• First, Mårten Mickos, MySQL AB’s former CEO and long-time SVP at Sun, has several positive comments in his Forbes interview “Why Oracle Won’t Kill MySQL”.
• Second, Michael “Monty” Widenius, MySQL AB’s co-founder, also finds many positive things to say in his blog statement “To be (free) or not to be (free)“.

My humble suggestions: Keep using MySQL! Follow the announcements from the MySQL Conference this week! Keep helping each other within the MySQL community!

Go MySQL!

After a few days at home in Munich, I was fortunate enough to fly to the Southern Hemisphere again. This time, I’m in Argentina, planning to visit also Uruguay and Chile.

I plan to meet with many Sun customers and MySQL users, and talk about Open Source. All Libre, some of it even Gratuita. The sign on the right is from Jardin Botánico in Buenos Aires, where I had some time off today. I’m posting some of the more private observations on blogs.arno.fi/isit so as not to spam this list with observations of Jacaranda trees. (Note: At the time of writing, not many of my South American observations are yet live.)

Simon Phipps yesterday blogged about the emerging Sun Model for Open Source business:

As time has gone by, a clear “Sun Model” for open source business has been emerging, at least to my eyes. The summary of it is:

1. remove barriers to software adoption between download and deploy;
2. encourage a large and cohesive community of software deployers;
3. deliver, for a fee, the means to create value between deploy and scale, for those who need it.

Each software team at Sun interprets this model in a slightly different way, but the model holds pretty much everywhere and works regardless of the license for the code. As a business model, it doesn’t have much to say about the nature of the development community, but I believe dysfunction in that area is a barrier to adoption so it’s always an issue if dysfunction exists.

This model is the natural progression of the concept of monetising at the point of value, and I hope to explore it more over the coming weeks. Feel free to ask questions below about the things needing clarification.

Expressing the Sun Model this concisely is not easy. Just three points, two of which are one-liners at least on my screen. And at least MySQL follows it, not just to the spirit, but I’d venture to say we follow it even to the letter.

Impressive job, Simon!

One of the most interesting people I met during my trip to South Africa earlier this week was Aslam Raffee. He keynoted the Sun event, sharing his view of the South African government’s stance on Open Source.

Aslam has two roles: He is the Chief Information Officer at the South African Department of Science and Technology. He is also the chairperson of the OSS Workgroup in the South African Government IT Officers Council.

From Aslam’s presentation, it is clear that South Africa is ahead of the game when it comes to finding out ways to mandate the use of Open Source in Government. I had the privilege to talk to Aslam over lunch, and he described the process whereby the OSS Workgroup is moving the usage of Open Source products like MySQL from optional to default status.

I have a new top example to talk about, right alongside India and Brazil!

Today is Good News Day. In addition to my note on Ivan Nikitin’s improved health, I have good news for our current and potential code contributors:

We have moved from having used MySQL AB’s own Contributor License Agreement (CLA) to now using the Sun’s Contributor Agreement (SCA), which is shorter and easier.

I’ve been asked about our contributor licensing on several occasions, such as back in July, at MySQL Camp in Bangalore, India, as Parvesh mentioned in his blog.

The MySQL Contributor License Agreement (CLA) was an agreement that we asked patch and feature contributors to sign in order to allow us to use their contributions in MySQL Server, which is licensed both under GPL and under our commercial license. The CLA required that the contributors transfer the copyright of their code to MySQL, while of course retaining a perpetual license to use their code in any way they wanted.

Some of our community members objected to having to transfer the copyright to MySQL. And we took it as our homework to double and triple check whether we really need that strong rights from a legal perspective, when Sun could do with the more light-weight SCA (Sun Contributor Agreement). I’m happy to note that this double-and-triple checking is completed, and we’re going to the simpler and clearer SCA. Moreover, the SCA guarantees that your contribution will always be made available as open source. Not that we ever had the intention of revoking that, but I’m sure the contributors will appreciate this guarantee in the SCA.

The whole MySQL Community Team and the MySQL Entineering Team hope that this news is greeted warmly by the greater contributor community. I encourage further feedback as to how we can continue to remove barriers to our community and best collaborate and encourage an “Architecture of Participation”.

You can find information about the Sun Contributor Agreement and general
information about the contributor process online at the Contribute section of the MySQL Forge
and take a look at the SCA on Sun’s website.

In addition, as a contributor, you can choose to digitally sign the SCA via the MySQL Forge’s online contribution system.

Do note that those who already have signed the CLA need to submit the SCA form, if they want their future contributions be covered by the SCA.

To be specific: For those contributors who previously signed the MySQL Contributor License Agreement, your contributions will continue to be governed under the CLA. If you wish to instead have your contributions covered under the new Sun Contributor Agreement (recommended) we encourage you to resubmit under the online SCA form and your contributions will then be covered under the SCA.

Thanks to Jay Pipes for driving this CLA-to-SCA process!

Links:

• Contributing to MySQL: http://forge.mysql.com/contribute/index.php
• Sun’s SCA: http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/contributor_agreement.jsp
• Signing the SCA: http://forge.mysql.com/contribute/cla.php?action=add

In 2000, MySQL co-founder David Axmark first told me about having met with Eben Moglen. His descriptions of Eben were always filled with respect and admiration — respect for a person who can keep his integrity and views of how software law should shape the world, and admiration for Eben’s pragmatism and ability to make a difference in the real world.

David Axmark	Michael “Monty” Widenius	Eben Moglen

Over the years since David’s first encounters, Eben and his later estabished Software Freedom Law Center have repeatedly provided MySQL and its founders with insightful advice. As a startup, initially without any VC financing, MySQL hasn’t always been able to compensate proportionately to the value created.

In recognition of the value created for MySQL through SFLC’s advice, especially on how Eben helped defend MySQL as a GPL developer against license breaches, David and Monty have decided to donate 100 000 dollars each to the SFLC. David and Monty hope this token of appreciation can help the SFLC to give legal advice to support some of today’s startups, who build their business on Free Software. They also hope to inspire other Open Source entrepreneurs to support the SFLC.

Note: SFLC provides legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software. Founded in 2005, the Center now represents many of the most important and well-established free software and open source projects.

Links:

• Software Freedom Law Center: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/
• David Axmark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Axmark
• Michael “Monty” Widenius: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael Widenius
• Eben Moglen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen
• MySQL DevZone Interview with David: http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/interviews/david-axmark.html
• SFLC Services: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/services/
• SFLC Donations: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/donate/
• MySQL Thanks the Free Software Foundation (7 Nov 2002): http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/generate-article.php?id=178
• MySQL Thanks the Software Freedom Law Center (8 May 2007): http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/2007/05/08/software-freedom-law-center/

If you for some reason missed the news yesterday: Symbian, the largest mobile operating system, will soon be Open Source. The software will be made available “over the next two years” and is intended to be released under Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.0.

Looking at the Symbian press release:

Mobile leaders to unify the Symbian software platform and set the future of mobile free

Foundation to be established to provide royalty-free open platform and accelerate innovation

LONDON, UK; June 24, 2008 - Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and NTT DOCOMO announced today their intent to unite Symbian OS™, S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) to create one open mobile software platform. Together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone they plan to establish the Symbian Foundation to extend the appeal of this unified software platform. Membership of this non-profit Foundation will be open to all organizations. This initiative is supported by current shareholders and management of Symbian Limited, who have been actively involved in its development. Plans for the Foundation have already received wide support from other industry leaders.

To enable the Foundation, Nokia today announced plans to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own and then contribute the Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola today announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all Foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the Foundation’s first day of operations.

Many commentators, such as TechCrunchIT, think this is a good move by Nokia. Om Malik has a good analysis of the likely background reasoning.

Personally, I’m a happy Symbian user (Nokia E61i) and certainly welcome the move. Hey, Symbian’s market share is already well over half of the mobile market. This is a move in the right direction, at the right moment in time.

Ah, and did I mention that MySQL runs on Symbian?

Thanks, Nokia!

Links:

• Symbian enlightened by LAMP (entry on my blog from Dec 2007): http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/2007/12/10/symbian-enlightened-by-lamp/
• Symbian press release: http://www.symbian.com/news/pr/2008/pr200810018.html
• TechCrunchIT / Nik Cubrilovic: http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/06/24/symbian-goes-open-source-courtesy-of-nokia/
• Om Malik — Symbian, iPhone & the New Mobile Reality: http://gigaom.com/2008/06/24/symbian-iphone-the-new-mobile-reality/

As reported yesterday from CommunityOne:

• MySQL Server is and will always remain fully functional and open source,
• so will the MySQL Connectors, and
• so will the main storage engines we ship.

In addition:

• MySQL 6.0’s pending backup functionality will be open source,
• the MyISAM driver for MySQL Backup will be open source, and
• the encryption and compression backup features will be open source,

where the last item is a change of direction from what we were considering before.

The change comes from MySQL now being part of Sun Microsystems. Our initial plans were made for a company considering an IPO, but made less sense in the context of Sun, a large company with a whole family of complementary open source software and hardware products.

I’d like to shed some light on the big picture, in two different ways — openness, and the business model.

MySQL’s openness manifests itself in three ways:

• MySQL’s code is open.
• MySQL’s APIs are open.
• MySQL’s data formats are open.

These form a foundation around the MySQL Server and its connectors on which we (Sun), our partners, and the community can all freely build upon. And through this openness, we will always provide a means for our users to easily export their data from MySQL.

Then for MySQL’s business model. To financially support MySQL’s free and open source platform, we have a business model which allows both community and commercial add-ons, and we remain committed to it. We believe the model to be useful for both those who spend money to save time, and those who spend time to save money.

As Mårten mentioned yesterday in the CommunityOne panel, expect Sun/MySQL to continue experimenting with the business model, and with what’s offered for the community and what’s offered commercial-only. We won’t always know the right answer from the beginning, but we want MySQL to be the most popular database for both paying and non-paying users.

With 130 entries in the “MySQL” category and no MySQL-related subcategories, my blog had become impossible to search and navigate easily.

And thus I created a number of new categories for the MySQL entries within my blog. They’re listed in the left navigation bar, below the months, as well as below:

• MySQL Server, MySQL Cluster, Falcon
• Connectors: PHP, Ruby on Rails
• Tools: GUI, MySQL Workbench, MySQL Proxy
• Events: MySQL Users Conferences
• Licensing: GPL
• Architecture of Participation, Summer of Code, Virtual company
• Other: Release Policy, Documentation, Use cases

I hope this will make my blog more (re)usable.

(The picture is from this summer, when navigating the way up the Großvenediger, a 3662 m high mountain in the Hohe Tauern region of Austria.)

We congratulate the Free Software Foundation on the release of GPLv3 and offer our thanks to the many individuals in the open source community who participated in the process of drafting the license.

It’s good to see overall improvements in GPLv3 over GPLv2, when it comes to compatibility with other Free/Open Source Software licenses, to the compatibility with other legislations than the US legal system, and to strengthened incompatibility with Software Patents. I am also happy if the work of the Committee B ends up contributing to a better adoption of GPLv3. I am in awe as to the patience and skillful diplomacy with which Eben Moglen could tame the group consisting of everything from techies from comparatively small companies (like Trolltech and ourselves) to the seniormost lawyers from the biggest Fortune 500 companies.

MySQL will continue to monitor the industry’s reaction and adoption of the new license, as we decide the best overall course for our community, our company, our users and our customers.