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from the making-a-buck-developing-free-software dept.
InfoWorld reports
MariaDB Corp. has announced that release 2.0 of its MaxScale database proxy software is henceforth no longer open source. The organization has made it source-available under a proprietary license that promises each release will eventually become open source once it's out of date.
MaxScale is at the pinnacle of MariaDB Corp.'s monetization strategy--it's the key to deploying MariaDB databases at scale. The thinking seems to be that making it mandatory to pay for a license will extract top dollar from deep-pocketed corporations that might otherwise try to use it free of charge. This seems odd for a company built on MariaDB, which was originally created to liberate MySQL from the clutches of Oracle.
The license in question, the Business Source License, was devised by MySQL creator Michael "Monty" Widenius in 2013. It allows use for evaluation and sets a date when the source code will be placed under the GPL, but it's explicitly proprietary in pursuit of commercial ends.
Monty blogs
Here is a statement from a large software company when I asked them to support MariaDB development with financial support:
As you may remember, we're a fairly traditional and conservative company. A donation from us would require feature work in exchange for the donation. Unfortunately, I cannot think of a feature that I would want developed that we would be willing to pay for this year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:12PM
Have you not heard of Islamic Banking? Clever wordplay is how they work around religious law forbidding usury. Banks don't pay interest, they give gifts. Business people are experts at immoral legal fictions.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday August 22 2016, @12:24AM
Huh. You're correct. I always thought that Jizzlam-compliant finance laws regarding interest applied only to running a negative balance in a loan/account.
Then again, seeing the current state of both local and federal American politics, the notion should come as no surprise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:00AM
Why do you hate toasters?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hendrikboom on Monday August 22 2016, @02:19AM
In Islamic banking, the "lender" actually gets a stake in the profits of the business he "lends" to. If the business fails, the "lender" is out of luck. If it succeeds, the "lender" gets paid back with a share of the profits. This isn't exactly the same as moneylending in the usual Western banking system, where the bank gets to sell mortgaged assets to the great detriment of the borrower.
So I've heard, anyway.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday August 22 2016, @08:39AM
That's not quite how it works. You pay rent on property, not on money. For example, if you want to buy a house then an Islamic bank will offer you a shared ownership scheme rather than a mortgage. You will buy, say, 20% of the property and they will buy 80%. You will then pay rent to them on the 80% and buy some more of it each year. This can be a worse deal if the contract doesn't allow you to buy the rest at a fixed price, because if the property market is moving up then the value of their share may continue to be the same even though the proportion is dropping.
It's an odd double standard in Islam to allow this. Islam has a principle that if something is not prohibited by the Qur'an, but something considered equivalent is, then the prohibition applies. For example, Islam outlaws abortion because the Qur'an prohibits infanticide, Islam outlaws other intoxicants because the Qur'an prohibits alcohol. Yet Islam does not outlaw rent seeking even though the Qur'an prohibits usury. It's completely fine in Islam to profit purely from having access to capital, as long as you do it via some intermediary.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by romlok on Monday August 22 2016, @11:30AM
I imagine that different Islamic banks could have different models, based on different interpretations (and local laws). An Elbonian bank might demand rent on a property, as you suggest. A Kerplekistan bank might take a more "investment" route, as hendrikboom described above. Or a Foobaristan bank might purchase the item outright, and sell it to the client for a higher, but fixed, amount, paid off over time - as I have previously heard described.
Speaking of "Islam" as a single monolithic entity, with a single set of rules, is mistaken. The details of the traditions, beliefs, and teachings of Islam can vary from mosque to mosque within a single town, let alone across nations.
And AFAIK usury is a sin/forbidden in The Bible too. That didn't, and doesn't, stop even devout Christians from usuring all and sundry, either.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday August 22 2016, @12:58PM
Depending on which biblical scholars you ask, Christ's death essentially represented the end of the laws laid down in the Old Testament, which is why kosher isn't applied to Christians (the same dietary laws exist in the bible and in the torah).
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @02:42PM
Then he was a heritic.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday August 22 2016, @12:59PM
Hendrik's explanation and the Moslems themselves tapdance around it but its just small scale western style financial market financing. Unlike the west where you need to pay $250K/yr to be permitted to try to raise funds on the NYSE, the Moslems are willing to contract the same style of financial deal with like, one dude running one gas station.
Another option I've seen related to Hendrik's is the bank basically buys in as a capital providing silent partner. The corporation owns the gas station, the corporation is mostly owned by the bank, the human partner can buy out the bank partner if he's successful over time, or maybe not. This is basically the western VC model although you're not required to live in SV and the business is not required to be ".... on the internet" bubble variety.
They also work the gift economy very hard, its not illegal under Islam under most interpretations to pay interest as a depositor or lender as long as its not guaranteed and totally voluntary. Technically any deposit or loan can earn 0% interest ONE TIME but the odds of you or anyone in your extended family being offered service in the future will be, um, reduced a bit if you insist paying zero or insultingly low "gift" aka interest. You can get a 0% mortgage or loan, but you better pay a voluntary gift or you and your family will never do business again with that bank (and anyone the banker talks to, and they like to talk...)
Nobody mentioned yet that Islamic finance has the usual Sharia limitation, no financing for a pig farm or pr0n websites or liquor stores or whatever.
A surprising amount of Islamic finance boils down to "we does microfinance" and "long term personal relationships matter in business deals" and aside from the usual side helping of our arbitrary and random laws are different than your arbitrary and random laws, pretty much everything in Islamic finance follows from those two main ideas.
Islamic finance is pretty interesting. Like all big things, there's parts of Islam that suck, like, say, their attitude toward women or their lack of even trying to self police their terrorist extremists before they shoot up gay nightclubs. But big things always have parts that are cool and parts that suck, and Islamic finance is part of the cool. And explosively growing BTW. Like 20% annual growth rates over the last decade and its now getting up to a percent or two of the global financial world. Its gonna be a very big deal when my kids are my age, for example.
For a good time, always follow the money. When some rich Jewish financier in London starts complaining about the Evils of Sharia Law he's not really complaining about stoning gays or no bacon on sale in supermarkets anymore, he's complaining about Moslems doing banking with Moslems and he's pretty butthurt than they're cutting his tribe out of the deals and/or his western corporation out of the deals. Now when a normal person off the street complains about invaders its because they're raping the local women with impunity because they know they won't be punished, I'm talking about the usual corporate elites talking about corporate priorities on corporate TV.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday August 22 2016, @02:40PM
And AFAIK usury is a sin/forbidden in The Bible too. That didn't, and doesn't, stop even devout Christians from usuring all and sundry, either.
It certainly did. There's a reason that Jews controlled the banking industry in Europe for centuries: Christians were prohibited from profiting from loans, whereas Jews were not. Today, a number of Christian groups retain this restriction.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 22 2016, @08:00PM
Yet Islam does not outlaw rent seeking even though the Qur'an prohibits usury. It's completely fine in Islam to profit purely from having access to capital, as long as you do it via some intermediary.
Rent seeking isn't at all like usury. It isn't at all like charging interest.
Also, because Islam is what ever the guy holding the gun says it is, you are seriously at risk with any of these corner cases.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.