Today is a good day for me. Today I tweeted that MySQL after 25 years is still GPL and same for all important components: the server, the shell, the router, the clone plugin, workbench !
To be honest, Oracle has been a very good steward for MySQL so far, PZ and Kaj admitted it too. This exactly what I was thinking when I joined the MySQL family and I’m still convinced about it after 4 years… and never as much as now !
If you know me, you should know that for more than 20 years I always praised and defended Open Source! All kind, not only MySQL! I started of course with Linux and then a huge amount of projects where I dedicated time, docs, code, bug reports, chats… As you know I also worked for Stone-IT, X-tend, Inuits and Percona, companies involved in Open Source and having to deal with databases. During that time, I promoted and helped several projects like Galera, Maxscale, ProxySQL and BDR… Today, only two of them are still Open Source and free to use…
Most of the aggressive messages I received today related to my tweet, were precisely from people who stand behind these two projects… I mean fans, rooting for the databases owning those projects, not people working there with whom I still have a very good relationship… thank you for that !
So yes, I’m very happy to work for MySQL, the only Open Source project that delivers you a valid High Availability turnkey solution for your DBMS, from the client to the storage. MySQL HA is 100% GPL solution with Server, Connectors, Router, Shell. While others insert BS License in their recommended HA solutions or close source it.
I’m very happy and so you should be that MySQL is GPL and that we didn’t change license in the middle of the project.
And I want to finish by a very known quote we often say in French: to want to be more catholic than the Pope, you lose your faith.
In MySQL and Open Source I still believe !
