Reflections of the founder of MySQL on the development of the project under the wing of Oracle and the economics of open products

One of the founders of the MySQL project, currently MariaDB project manager Ulf Michael Widenius (also known as Monty), in an interview with ITwire, said that Oracle failed to make MySQL a successful product because the company does not understand the open source software development model.

“It's not in their DNA,” added Monty. “They are trying to lead an open project in the same manner in which they develop their closed products, and this is a big mistake.”

Recently, Red Hat - the company behind the development of the most popular Linux distribution in the business sector - announced that the upcoming seventh version of the MySQL distribution will be replaced by its offshoot, MariaDB. For the development of MariaDB, in turn, is Monty and the Monty Program Ab company he founded. Previously, SkySQL was also taken over by Monty, together with another MySQL co-founder, David Axmark, who worked there as a technical director. The third co-founder of MySQL, Alan Larisson, also works with Monty, helping him as needed with his advice and deed.

Monty said that the main reason why more and more people and companies began to look for an alternative to MySQL was largely due to the fact that Oracle clearly showed its reluctance to play by the accepted rules with the developer community. Explaining his opinion, he added that “isolating the open core of MySQL, removing tests from source codes (mostly to make life difficult for projects based on its code base) and creating conditions under which no one can develop MySQL with those the same privileges that Oracle has, ”it all caused the situation.

- Another reason is that MariaDB is more advanced (faster, safer and more functional) than MySQL, while it remains 100% compatible if you migrate the infrastructure from MySQL to MariaDB. Why do you have to use MySQL, when you have a fully compatible solution, which is completely open and at the same time more productive, without losing anything at all?
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Monty said that he sees no logical reason why Oracle continues to develop MySQL. “They do not make money on MySQL (regarding their main products).” Their sales team wants to sell to MySQL clients, as their commissions will be much lower, ”he says. - "With each sale of MySQL, more potential profit is lost if, instead of MySQL, their main product, the Oracle database, were sold."

“From the point of view of Oracle, it would be most beneficial to simply end the existence of MySQL, but I think that Oracle, in a sense, wants to retain power over MySQL, leaving no chance for competitors. The company is likely to continue to continue to develop MySQL, making it less and less open, which will eventually force most users of alternative products to switch to MySQL from Oracle.

“They also increased the price of MySQL so much that in some cases, the Oracle database is now more profitable to acquire than MySQL.”

Oracle acquired the rights to MySQL, after the acquisition in 2009 of Sun Microsystems. Sun bought MySQL a year earlier.

Recently, Monty was proposed the idea of ​​a so-called business source - a new open source product distribution model whereby a business could sell its open products, but at the same time impose restrictions on recipients, not allowing them to distribute the product based on their base. until the set time has expired.

He says that this model will never be applicable to MariaDB: “This is impossible, since MariaDB is distributed under the GPL, and we don’t actually own the code.”

“Using the idea of ​​a business source, software companies could become more open and get all the benefits of open source, while they would have enough money to grow their business, which is difficult to achieve with a standard open source development scheme.

- I am asked a lot of questions on how to create a sustainable business that would attract investment. For investors, in most cases it is inappropriate to invest in software development companies that only profit from providing support services, such companies are less likely to grow to such an extent that a substantial return on investment could be obtained. Everything else, the development can not be paid off only by the means that the company receives from the provision of services.

Monty said in order to be able to grow, a developer’s company needs a certain type of license revenue or other related income.

- In the past, it was common to make a profit from the sale of licenses of unopened products; earning income from a business model in which there was an open core, and other parts were closed; Profit from double licensing. The big problem is that the open core model is considered by most open source developers as a closed source model. Dual licensing only works for certain types of products that are inherently part of the infrastructure in other products.

When asked why he doesn’t finance MariaDB from the income he received from selling MySQL, Monty replied: “It’s true that I received money for selling MySQL. Anyway, I don’t think it would be a rational decision to finance the entire future development of MariaDB from my own pocket. ”

- Any new business that is created around the software product, in my case MariaDB, should try to become profitable so that you can pay the salary to the developers. Without this, it is impossible to make a serious, competitive product. Completion of the same product to order and the provision of support services for an open database can not create a company that brings profit!

- To solve this problem, we created the non-profit organization MariaDB Foundation. The Foundation allows you to simplify the legal issues that arise when other companies want to allocate money and provide their resources for the development of the project. We also combined Monty Program Ab and SkySQL in order to create a large company that could provide a full range of services to support MariaDB, while developing a strategy to promote the product. All these components are sufficient to create a profitable company that will be interesting for investors and at the same time create an open product.

The names of both Monty's projects — MySQL and MariaDB — were donated by his daughters May and Maria. When asked what gift he prepared for them in return, Monty jokingly answered to make them as famous as possible. “All my children also received options for the company I created and which used their names,” he added. - “I think they received sufficient compensation for the opportunity to use their names ...”

via ITwire