MySQL tries twice to clarify its commercial software stance

You actually need a reliable database to keep track of the multitude of permutations deriving from MySQL executives' recent comments defending their company's right to make money off of its product.

The perennial problem among corporations that do business using an open source business model has been spelling out for its customers whether they mean "free as in 'speech,"' or "free as in, 'The global economy has collapsed, anarchy is rampant, and looting is widespread."' Since its absorption into the realm of Sun Microsystems, MySQL has had more and more difficulty appeasing a growing number of open source community proponents who worry that its commercial endeavors will divert the division's attention from adhering to the tenets of the General Public License.

The problem got worse instead of better for MySQL two weeks ago, when during its regular conference in Florida, company co-founder David Axmark told attendees that one clear and respectable way it plans to earn revenue commercially is through the distribution of MySQL add-on products to paying customers. That software may very well be closed-source in nature, Axmark said, and one example he offered would be an add-on for database encryption and compression.

One reason for add-ons being commercial, it appears, is to help foster a healthy industry around commercial adoption of MySQL. Three weeks ago, the makers of the InnoDB high-volume transaction database engine -- which include veterans from Oracle -- announced the pending availability of its engine as a plug-in for both MySQL Community (open) and Enterprise (commercial) editions.

Almost immediately, Axmark's comments were interpreted to mean that encryption and compression functions intrinsic to MySQL databases would be removed from MySQL's open source code base, and moved to the commercial code base where it would be maintained only by private developers and beta testers -- a comment which apparently Axmark did not make at all.

In an attempt to quell yet another falsely sparked uproar, the popular MySQL vice president of community relations, Kaj Arno, posted yet another clarification of his company's stand. "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," Arno wrote.

But this time, he did announce one change: Extensions for compression and encryption for backup (as opposed to intrinsic functions to the database) would be made open source as well, representing what he admitted was "a change of direction from what we were considering before."

Almost immediately, Arno's comments were reported elsewhere as a "reversal of course," as though he said MySQL would make all plug-ins of all kinds open source in the future -- which Arno did not say. And soon afterwards, a second wave of blog aggregation was unleashed, going so far as to say that MySQL would no longer be making any portion of its server or plug-in software commercial at all. Some sources claiming to cite Arno's blog post actually added words to his text that he did not write.

One commenter on Arno's blog yesterday blamed MySQL for the disparity between the first wave of misinterpreted comments and Arno's clarification, saying, "Fool me once, shame on me. Sun's concept of open source and the rest of the planet's differs quite a bit. Between that and their shifting sands schizophrenic management, it's hard to know where they stand."

But another was sympathetic: "I'm continually impressed by the candor and direct nature of comments by MySQL's top brass. You're an example of how leaders from more companies should act and speak."