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Business Source License: MariaDB has Gone Proprietary

posted by martyb on Sunday August 21 2016, @10:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the making-a-buck-developing-free-software dept.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

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it source-available under a proprietary license that promises each release will eventually become open source once it's out of date.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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 21 2016, @11:14PM (#391318)

    Windows is open source too if you join a club that gets a source license such as a large corporation or prestigious research university.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:33AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @01:33AM (#391385)

    Ha ha only serious, can't possibly be true, let's moderate Funny because Windows.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Enterprise_Source_Licensing_Program [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Windows_Academic_Program [wikipedia.org]

    • (Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday August 22 2016, @02:07AM

      by fido_dogstoyevsky (131) <{axehandle} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday August 22 2016, @02:07AM (#391399)

      Ha ha only serious, can't possibly be true, let's moderate Funny because Windows.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Enterprise_Source_Licensing_Program [wikipedia.org]

      "The ESLP license agreement is among the most restrictive of the licenses associated with shared source programs, allowing no modifications of the code." (same link)

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Windows_Academic_Program

      http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/events/fs2006/papers/WindowsAcademicProgram_ArkadyRetik.doc [microsoft.com] :

      "Windows Research Kernel (WRK)
      The WRK contains the bulk of the source code for the Windows NT kernel (compatible with Windows Server 2003/XP for x86 and AMD64). These include all of the core sources for object management, processes, threads, virtual memory, the I/O system, and so on. The major pieces of kernel code that are not included are the Plug-and-Play/Power-Management facilities, the virtual MS-DOS machine, and the kernel debugger engine. The omitted modules are provided as binary objects which can be linked to produce a fully functional Windows NT OS executable and booted on Windows Server 2003 SP1 or Windows XP x64 Edition
      ....
      The WRK is licensed to the end user under a simple, more liberal license than previous Microsoft product sources. The WRK license grants wide non-commercial use of the sources, including sharing of derivatives with other faculty, open use in the classroom and by students, and publication of code snippets in textbooks and research papers."

      Neither of these seems to be an example of open source [opensource.org] software.

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @02:11AM (#391401)

      If there is a license that restricts what the user can do with the item, that is NOT "open".
      It's why M$ made up the deceptive name "shared source".

      If you have to buy a particular proprietary item in order to make the "open" thing work, that is NOT "open" either.
      It's why M$ made up the deceptive name "open core".

      If the license can be revoked, that is NOT "open" either.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @03:53AM (#391441)

        GPL restricts your rights to source code you write, that is NOT "open" either.
        It's why GNU made up the deceptive name "copyleft".

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:37AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2016, @09:37AM (#391538)

          GPL restricts your rights to source code you write

          If you chose existing GPL code to modify, you knew the rules going in.
          Don't like the rules? Don't start modifying the code.

          It would be less deceptive of you to say that GPL restricts your rights to screw over others who have added code to the project under the understanding that the user always comes first.

          Don't like the GPL?
          Write your own code from scratch and release it under your choice of license.
          ...but don't assume that you can sponge off of other devs whose top value is freedom for the user.

          copyleft

          ...which leaves copyright in place and adds MORE rights for the user.
          Again, you can always build your codebase from scratch without leeching off of anyone else's work.

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday August 22 2016, @08:33AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 22 2016, @08:33AM (#391515) Journal
    For something to be open source, you must have not just access to the source, but the rights to modify and distribute modified (and unmodified) versions. The source license for Windows does not include modification or distribution rights and doesn't even come with enough of the build system to build it yourself and verify that your binaries are the same as the ones from Microsoft.
    --
    sudo mod me up

    • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday August 22 2016, @03:32PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday August 22 2016, @03:32PM (#391685)

      Sounds like the build chain for a previous job. "If you can take the source and figure out how to build it... you're hired!"

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh

      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:56AM

        by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:56AM (#392027) Journal
        There are some open source projects like this too. Travis-CI, for example, comes with a warning that you may have access to the code, but they doubt that anyone outside of their company can get it to build. The situation with Windows is different though: the source license doesn't actually come with everything needed to build. Some parts are not owned by Microsoft and aren't included and you can't build a working system without these (I think that they also don't include any of the build files, but these at least are replaceable).
        --
        sudo mod me up

        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday August 24 2016, @03:14PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday August 24 2016, @03:14PM (#392598)

          It is somewhat ironic that a continuous integration product has a obfuscated build chain.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh