Susan Shemin wrote:
A ZDNet newsletter today announced, "Sun introduced immediate availability of 7X24 year round global, enterprise-class database subscriptions and services for the entire MySQL product line." I am wondering if with Sun's emphasis on enterprise-class DB, will there be changes for the non-enterprise users? Or will there always be open-sourced MySQL available for us non-enterprise users with our "measly" shared, web host accounts? Susan
I think that the plain simple MySQL that we mainly use will remain available at no cost with a favourable license for some time. One never knows what a company will do, but I cannot recall anyone ver releasing a product under GPL and then taking it proprietary. MySQL is released with two licenses, one is the GPL and another one is a 'proprietary' enterprise license so that companies can use MySQL in ways that would violate the GPL. AFAIK MySQL and now Sun charge for that commercial license and of course for any professional support. And I think that is what the announcement aims at. Sun/MySQL try to place MySQL in the enterprise as a viable alternative to other (SQL) databases, such as MSSQL, DB/2, Oracle and such. I think that is a promising endeavour and a nice example where the GPL helps a company to make money by not applying the GPL. Quite bizarre!
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