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MySQL founder tries a new software licensing model

126 points by phire 10y ago

oolongCat 10y ago
Going to be interesting seeing how they will figure out where to draw the line (in legal terms) between testing and production. Would health checks be considered as testing the system or production type work?
- phire 10y ago
  A simple test of "Can the intended end users access the system" would work. Would also be a great motivation for developers to not test things in production, as it's cheaper to test them in the development/testing environment.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    How can you accurately measure that via software though? What differentiates a developer from a user or a customer? IMO these are hard problems to solve and problems which are not worth the engineering effort to attempt solving.
    - phire 10y ago
      It's not a software issue, the licensee has access to the source code and can modify it in anyway they want, including removing any software-enforced licencing restrictions. It's the responsibility of the licensee to make sure they are in compliance with the licensing terms (buy enough licenses to cover the number of CPU cores they are running in production), otherwise the copyright holder will sue them. This idea of licencee self-compliance is not an innovative concept, it's how most licensing in large enterprise companies already works (and that's where this license is targeted), the company checks how many copies of the software they are running and pay that much. It's not quite an honer system. Companies conduct regular audits (done by an external company) to prove they have everything licensed correctly.
tomcam 10y ago
I don't say this lightly, but wasn't the open source license of MySQL the main source of its success? As I recall, it didn't really get huge until they loosened up the licensing terms. And wasn't that one of the main reasons it made $1 billion? Not criticizing – his business is his business. Just curious.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  Would PHP have become popular if MySQL had maintained a strict license? I wasn't a web developer at the time and am genuinely curious what the database landscape was like back then.
  - kyriakos 10y ago
    Postgre would probably been used instead. The demand for an easy to use Web scripting language existed, php fit the bill that's what pushed mysql to become popular.
    - oblio 10y ago
      I kind of doubt it. The Windows port of PostgreSQL was kind of lacking for a long time (8.0, released in 2010, brought the first native Windows server version) and a large group of PHP developers were Windows developers.
      - mpol 10y ago
        I don't remember Postgres having much traction around 2000 or before. Since there was "always" MySQL available, Postgres wasn't in need of development, for most people MySQL was sufficient. If MySQL had been less open, Postgres might have gotten momentum years earlier to fill that gap on the low web-end. I can imagine Postgres popularity in recent years is because people are replacing Oracle databases with Postgres, they are looking for a way out of that. Or even more, newer companies don't even look at starting with Oracle, but start on Postgres right away.
  - z92 10y ago
teddyuk 10y ago
I think it is a great idea, you can charge when people use it in production and it reverts to oss on a specific date. I worked at a startup and companies would want us to put a version of the software into escrow and were wary of us going under, giving them something like this would have been perfect.
- justincormack 10y ago
  As was pointed out elsewhere, it becomes GPL, which is not normally unencumbered enough for escrow, where you get unrestricted rights. You also want them immediately on failure, not after the timeout. So it doesnt work well for this use case.
  - nabla9 10y ago
    GPL works perfectly with dual licensing. If you want unencumbered, you pay for commercial license.
    - cowsandmilk 10y ago
      But that's the point, top parent was suggesting this as a replacement for commercial escrow. Most people wanting commercial escrow would not be satisfied with this.
      - montywi 10y ago
        I have been in several business discussions regarding source code in escrow and in all of them they have agreed that having the code released as BSL or eventually Open Source would be ok with them. After all, companies using your software wants just to be sure that they can continue to use it as before if you stop supporting it. For this purpose BSL works perfectly as a default. If they need more, then you make an explicit contract just for them where you give them more rights to the software.
  - markkit 10y ago
    It becomes GPL in case of their MaxScale product, other businesses adopting BSL license can choose a different delayed license, for example MIT.
supersan 10y ago
This is a little off topic and maybe controversial because it is against the spirit of open source but in all earnestness if you make a software that you want to make available to all open source projects but then you want to charge a recurring monthly fees if the software is being used to make money - is there a standard license for that? I've seen sites do this like readme.io but can you do that for a software library?
- cocoflunchy 10y ago
  Have you taken a look at what http://www.highcharts.com http://www.highcharts.com does? I haven't read their license but the model seems similar to what your looking for.
- unabst 10y ago
  It's called a dual license. And yes, you can do it for anything. Copyright is automatic, and it grants you control over the right to copy your creation. You just need to make sure you're the one that created it. Found this to be a good overview: http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/duallicence2 http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/duallicence2
boyter 10y ago
Very interesting. It's a bit like the fair source license model https://fair.io https://fair.io but more open in event the project looses traction is abandoned etc... Sold. I will be moving my project searchcode server over to this within a week.
cheriot 10y ago
Giving up revenue from customers that don't want to change and are happy to pay is a huge loss. AOL still makes 600m/yr from dial up. The open source freemium is cool, though. Those are two powerful forces.
jpalomaki 10y ago
This might create some complicated situations when the older versions become free and somebody decides to fork it to fix bugs that are present in the old (free) version, but fixed in later (not-free) releases. I believe then you end up with the question was this fix back ported from new version or did the developer come up with it independently.
- stephenr 10y ago
  Percona is already maintaining a fork, as they do with MySQL itself. At this point I don't understand why anyone needing a MySQL solution wouldn't use Percona's packages. Edit: yes, Percona not persona.
  - ebcode 10y ago
    Persona -> Percona
- montywi 10y ago
  When it comes to MaxScale, the older versions will get all security fixes and also critical bug fixes. The MariaDB corporation is also happy to accept contributions to the GPL and BSL code, so there is really no reason to do a fork, except for ones own personal gains. When it comes to code, it's usually very easy to see if code was backported or created independently, so this shouldn't be an issue.
athenot 10y ago
This is great from the perspective of contributing intellectual property back to the ecosystem. They are trying to balance the revenue aspect with growing an open community which benefits the product as a whole. My one concern is that the thrifty users will ride the expiration line, installing versions that don't cost money but which are outdated. I can see where that would be an acceptable tradeoff in many situations where the latest-and-greatest is not required. But from a security aspect I wonder if that also means that vulnerability fixes would only be available to the paying users. They are definitely worth paying for, no doubt; but would that then foster an ecosystem of not-really-patched installations out there? (Then again, that might not be that different from the current situation.)
- montywi 10y ago
  The old versions of MaxScale will of course get security and critical bug fixes. The MariaDB corporation will also accept patches to the GPL and BSL versions of the code.
markkit 10y ago
Actual license text: https://mariadb.com/bsl https://mariadb.com/bsl
Grishnakh 10y ago
When I see the abbreviation "BSL", I can't help but think it stands for "bullshit license".... However, it actually sounds like a great idea to me, and a great way for companies to make money licensing software to commercial users while still keeping it free and open source for individuals, while providing a safety mechanism in case the company goes belly-up.
- johannes1234321 10y ago
  There is nothing the individuals can do with the open source version. It's old and has bugs and maybe security issues. In theory they could look at the source of the "commercial" version, but then have to be careful - they can't change it and if they ever write code they have to be careful about not doing plagiarism.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    Sounds good to me; I don't see the problem. If you want to redistribute, then you need to use the old buggy version. I don't really see a problem here. If you want to use the latest-and-greatest in a non-commercial capacity, you can do just that. And it's open-source, so you can modify it all you want and use it. You just can't distribute it. What's the problem? No, it's not as Free as GPLed software, nor is it meant to be. It's meant to allow a company to make a profit on software licensed to other businesses or for commercial use, while still allowing it to be open-source, and allowing private individuals to use it without paying a license fee. (At least, that's how I read it from the article.) It sounds like a great way to balance the competing interests of a commercial software company, the users (both non-commercial and commercial), and the community at large. It would be a terrible license for basic infrastructure software like OpenSSH or PostgreSQL, but for business-oriented application software, it sounds absolutely perfect. (Note, again, what I've written above about the way the BSL works is what I've gleaned from reading the article; if I'm incorrect, someone please feel free to correct me.)
quickben 10y ago
Is he trying to sell mariaDB now too? I mean, it's genius from the business side. Unless i got the story wrong, he sold MySQL after people helped him create it. Forked it, and now it's turning the fork into MySQL/Oracle profit cow. Either somebody correct me, or I'm going to assume "for as long as there's are sheep..."
- cwyers 10y ago
  His MySQL fork, MariaDB, is still going to be GPL, because he doesn't have the ability to change the license on the code Oracle owns.
  - quickben 10y ago
    Ah thanks, that makes sense now.
- syshum 10y ago
  WHile I despise this new licensing, your redition of history is not correct Monty sold MySQL to Sun, he believed Sun would be good steward of the project, provide it the resources it needed, and allow it to flourish remaining Open Source When Oracle bought Sun, Monty and most of the MySQL devs where very very very very very concerned that Orcale would be detrimental to MySQL going forward so they forked it and founded MariaDB to replace Oracle's mySQL Some of their fears never came to be, but Oracle has closed the development of mysql is many ways, it is not as bad as it was orginally feared, but it no where near as open as it was under Sun.
  - johannes1234321 10y ago
    The fork already happend during the time with Sun.
    - syshum 10y ago
      The fork happened while the sale was happening.
  - 10y ago
CraigJPerry 10y ago
Its easier to procure paid for software than open source in many large enterprises. There was a culture of fear for open source promulgated by proprietary vendors and major consultancies in the early 00's - the "know the facts" campaign by Gartner and Microsoft springs to mind. Although this idea is generally dead now, the scars live on in the purchasing and licencing approval flows at many large enterprises. I am familiar with several organisations where a paid for software licence can be acquired with nothing more than trivial approval for the spend. Yet adoption of an open source product requires multi layer approval of the licence and recording of licence risk against the project. There is a valid case for that due diligence but its not a particularly strong case and if it were the reason for this situation, then proprietary software licences would be subject to the same scrutiny.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  It is also easier to make a living from closed source, than open source. Not all types of software are profitable with consulting, books or donations.
- corecoder 10y ago
  Paid for software usually comes in two flavours: turnkey or with consultants. In both cases the promise is that the software will in the end run, and those who need to will actually be able to use it. Also, that the software does something that should be useful to you. Open source software comes "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. So, who is promising that the software will run, that people will be able to use it and that it does something actually useful to the large enterprise? If the enterprise has never used that software, long time employees have usually no professional experience with it, so it is risky have them install and run it. In my limited experience, adoption of open source software by large enterprises comes most of the times through consultants, hired not to install the software but to solve a business problem. The consultants promise to solve the problem with the software, and that the software will run etc.
  - cyphar 10y ago
    > Open source software comes "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. As far as I'm aware, most proprietary licenses have the same disclaimer. Have you ever seen Oracle getting sued when their database segfaults and loses data (in a similar way that a contractor would get sued for building a bridge that crashes)? You usually pay for support contracts with big enterprises, which have external guarantees and experts on call. Luckily, free software companies provide the same services without taking the freedom from the users of that software.
trengrj 10y ago
Interesting concept, like how code will turn into GPL after a few years. Glad though that MariaDB is and could not be BSL.
simbalion 10y ago
They are switching to a BS License? Are we supposed to take this seriously?
- Maskawanian 10y ago
  And most retail shops use a POS system for their checkouts, what is your point?
  - simbalion 10y ago
    https://twitter.com/VadimTk/status/766333511514992640 https://twitter.com/VadimTk/status/766333511514992640
evanelias 10y ago
Applying BSL to the MaxScale proxy is proving to be, so far, an unpopular decision among a large segment of the MySQL community. The TechCrunch article didn't address this specifically, but the license for MaxScale requires a MariaDB Enterprise Subscription if you use MaxScale with just 3 or more database servers at your company. Since MaxScale is a proxy, it isn't particularly useful for companies that only have 1 or 2 database servers, except as a very limited trial. So this move effectively makes MaxScale commercial software for most production use. This is a strange business decision, considering there are other third-party proxies available, such as ProxySQL, that have same (or better) functionality and no requirement for purchasing a commercial license. I also wonder how MariaDB Enterprise Subscription pricing works for companies that just want to use MaxScale to connect to stock Oracle MySQL or Percona Server MySQL? Seems strange to tie the licensing to MariaDB Enterprise even for companies that just want to use MaxScale alone. Although a good proxy takes a lot of development work, it's still tiny compared to building a relational database. I wouldn't expect the two to be priced the same.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  You highlighted the limitations of the license: as soon as you're into commercial terms, and money starts changing hands - things start to get very situationally specific.
- montywi 10y ago
  Most usage of MaxScale is one of the following: - One Master with one Slave (for backup and high availability) - Galera with 2 masters and the Galera Arbitrator This covers possible 90% or more of the common usage cases. MaxScale is usually included in the MariaDB enterprise subscriptions and one can also get standalone licenses for MaxScale.
apo 10y ago
It's surprisingly hard to find the actual text of the Business Source License. Where is it? The link in the article points to a FAQ, which also does not appear link to the text of the license: https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting A Google search did not turn up the text of the license itself.
- edmccard 10y ago
  https://mariadb.com/bsl https://mariadb.com/bsl
nickpsecurity 10y ago
This interesting given I brought up a similar model talking to people here. I agree with the founder that licensing trumps support agreements in terms of supporting development of the product. He didn't even mention amassing patent portfolios or defending patent suits. These are relevant given big tech uses them to stop competition. Development, sales to increase amount of it, and legal investments all take much money. Licensing from paid users is best way to get that. So, how to balance that versus wants of OSS community that might test, contribute code, and so on? One thing I posted was that the license would come with source, allow fixes, allow local extensions, and simply block redistribution unless its to paying customers. Covers most OSS benefits. To address lockin, I suggested provisions to cap what they can charge for given software and (relevant here) make it go GPL if it's abandoned. Only got two reviews on this so far. I'm interested in getting some more. I think I've gotten pretty close to getting almost all benefits of OSS software while ensuring it stays paid for. Btw, one can also give out free or supported-at-cost copies to those help out in docs, debugging, whatever. One could also do free, AS-IS licenses for small businesses or startups so long as their revenue is below certain point. The only thing I didn't try to do is restrict by number of CPU's, servers, whatever. It seems natural in mainframes, clouds, enterprise, whatever. I'm just concerned about its effects on how product is used in terms of innovation or robustness. One example is desktop virtualization at level of individual apps for security or failure isolation purposes. Your user experience at OS level is still about the same given you're using same OS to run same apps. The deficiency of OS in isolation means you had to add a virtualization solution. So, should people be charged an extra $100+ an instance to make up for that deficiency? Or same thing in high-availability setup where extra nodes don't contribute to throughput? So, I'm undecided on usage licensing.
- bad_user 10y ago
  > Covers most OSS benefits No it doesn't, it's not even close. Other companies tried to bring this same argument but failed. Some people think that the primary benefit of Open Source is having some level of access to the source code and fortunately this didn't fly, in spite of the effort of companies, such as Microsoft with their "shared source" initiatives. Open source [1] brings with it two major benefits: 1. the ability to use the software for any purpose, any field of endeavor, with no discrimination, for any business model. By your own admission, your license would be incompatible with such a contract. 2. open source can be forked, just like Monty here forked MySQL and (arguably) kept it from dying. The importance of this cannot be overstated. But more to the point, you say you'd allow "fixes" and "local extensions", yet restrict redistribution to paying customers, but well, you clearly have boundaries in mind for derivate works, as you clearly only want to allow small improvements. Can those improvements be redistributed as source code, for the benefit of others? And if not, then clients could find themselves in a gray area. For example what happens if these clients hire contractors to provide those improvements? That's always possible with open source, just like how it is (still) possible to take your car to any repair shop. You can quickly see how this can go out of hand. And the restriction for paying customers sounds awful - first of all, what's a "paying customer"? Do money need to exchange hands? Are trial versions permitted? What if you want an alternative business model, ads-based or whatever. Etc. But the biggest benefit of Open Source is the right to fork. First of all, this implies that ownership over such software is achieved by anybody that wants it. And it's an important right, especially if things go wrong. You say that you could maybe have a clause somewhere, or a promise, to make the software GPL should it become abandoned. Oh well, what is abandonment? Plus, abandonment is not the only bad thing that could happen. You could also steer the project in a direction that people don't want, you could intentionally cripple it, you could raise prices so much as to make it unfordable and when you get bored of it, you could simply sell it to another company. Notice how neither of these conditions do not classify as abandonment. Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against proprietary software, heck, I would be a hypocrite if I wouldn't admit to developing and making a living off of proprietary software myself. But I see marketing attempts to redefine what Open Source means, only because Open Source is marketable, being extremely attractive at least to developers and for good reasons. And look, I get it, we need to make a living, but it's dishonest. Your product can survive and flourish as proprietary, but stop with the bullshit and call a spade a spade. [1] https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated
jomamaxx 10y ago
This licence is the basis for a business model - and should not be considered along side gpl, mit etc.. It's not particularly relevant to the discussion. This is a business and commercial issue, not a 'details of the license' issue. The text could take on so many forms, and it's not particularly useful unless you're a very startup and can't afford a lawyer. Example: What is the price? What are the terms of payment? What about discounts? What is a 'CPU' when you're using virtualized hardware? How do the terms hold up against IP rights in the rest of the world? (Europe has very different laws for Software). It's great that there's some text that a company can grab, but any company that is going to be licensing software should eventually consult a lawyer about this.

126 points by phire 10y ago

Going to be interesting seeing how they will figure out where to draw the line (in legal terms) between testing and production. Would health checks be considered as testing the system or production type work?

phire 10y ago
A simple test of "Can the intended end users access the system" would work. Would also be a great motivation for developers to not test things in production, as it's cheaper to test them in the development/testing environment.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  How can you accurately measure that via software though? What differentiates a developer from a user or a customer? IMO these are hard problems to solve and problems which are not worth the engineering effort to attempt solving.
  - phire 10y ago
    It's not a software issue, the licensee has access to the source code and can modify it in anyway they want, including removing any software-enforced licencing restrictions. It's the responsibility of the licensee to make sure they are in compliance with the licensing terms (buy enough licenses to cover the number of CPU cores they are running in production), otherwise the copyright holder will sue them. This idea of licencee self-compliance is not an innovative concept, it's how most licensing in large enterprise companies already works (and that's where this license is targeted), the company checks how many copies of the software they are running and pay that much. It's not quite an honer system. Companies conduct regular audits (done by an external company) to prove they have everything licensed correctly.

tomcam 10y ago

I don't say this lightly, but wasn't the open source license of MySQL the main source of its success? As I recall, it didn't really get huge until they loosened up the licensing terms. And wasn't that one of the main reasons it made $1 billion? Not criticizing – his business is his business. Just curious.

ben_jones 10y ago
Would PHP have become popular if MySQL had maintained a strict license? I wasn't a web developer at the time and am genuinely curious what the database landscape was like back then.
- kyriakos 10y ago
  Postgre would probably been used instead. The demand for an easy to use Web scripting language existed, php fit the bill that's what pushed mysql to become popular.
  - oblio 10y ago
    I kind of doubt it. The Windows port of PostgreSQL was kind of lacking for a long time (8.0, released in 2010, brought the first native Windows server version) and a large group of PHP developers were Windows developers.
    - mpol 10y ago
      I don't remember Postgres having much traction around 2000 or before. Since there was "always" MySQL available, Postgres wasn't in need of development, for most people MySQL was sufficient. If MySQL had been less open, Postgres might have gotten momentum years earlier to fill that gap on the low web-end. I can imagine Postgres popularity in recent years is because people are replacing Oracle databases with Postgres, they are looking for a way out of that. Or even more, newer companies don't even look at starting with Oracle, but start on Postgres right away.
- z92 10y ago

teddyuk 10y ago

I think it is a great idea, you can charge when people use it in production and it reverts to oss on a specific date. I worked at a startup and companies would want us to put a version of the software into escrow and were wary of us going under, giving them something like this would have been perfect.

justincormack 10y ago
As was pointed out elsewhere, it becomes GPL, which is not normally unencumbered enough for escrow, where you get unrestricted rights. You also want them immediately on failure, not after the timeout. So it doesnt work well for this use case.
- nabla9 10y ago
  GPL works perfectly with dual licensing. If you want unencumbered, you pay for commercial license.
  - cowsandmilk 10y ago
    But that's the point, top parent was suggesting this as a replacement for commercial escrow. Most people wanting commercial escrow would not be satisfied with this.
    - montywi 10y ago
      I have been in several business discussions regarding source code in escrow and in all of them they have agreed that having the code released as BSL or eventually Open Source would be ok with them. After all, companies using your software wants just to be sure that they can continue to use it as before if you stop supporting it. For this purpose BSL works perfectly as a default. If they need more, then you make an explicit contract just for them where you give them more rights to the software.
- markkit 10y ago
  It becomes GPL in case of their MaxScale product, other businesses adopting BSL license can choose a different delayed license, for example MIT.

supersan 10y ago

This is a little off topic and maybe controversial because it is against the spirit of open source but in all earnestness if you make a software that you want to make available to all open source projects but then you want to charge a recurring monthly fees if the software is being used to make money - is there a standard license for that? I've seen sites do this like readme.io but can you do that for a software library?

cocoflunchy 10y ago
Have you taken a look at what http://www.highcharts.com http://www.highcharts.com does? I haven't read their license but the model seems similar to what your looking for.
unabst 10y ago
It's called a dual license. And yes, you can do it for anything. Copyright is automatic, and it grants you control over the right to copy your creation. You just need to make sure you're the one that created it. Found this to be a good overview: http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/duallicence2 http://oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/duallicence2

boyter 10y ago

Very interesting. It's a bit like the fair source license model https://fair.io https://fair.io but more open in event the project looses traction is abandoned etc... Sold. I will be moving my project searchcode server over to this within a week.

cheriot 10y ago

Giving up revenue from customers that don't want to change and are happy to pay is a huge loss. AOL still makes 600m/yr from dial up. The open source freemium is cool, though. Those are two powerful forces.

jpalomaki 10y ago

This might create some complicated situations when the older versions become free and somebody decides to fork it to fix bugs that are present in the old (free) version, but fixed in later (not-free) releases. I believe then you end up with the question was this fix back ported from new version or did the developer come up with it independently.

stephenr 10y ago
Percona is already maintaining a fork, as they do with MySQL itself. At this point I don't understand why anyone needing a MySQL solution wouldn't use Percona's packages. Edit: yes, Percona not persona.
- ebcode 10y ago
  Persona -> Percona
montywi 10y ago
When it comes to MaxScale, the older versions will get all security fixes and also critical bug fixes. The MariaDB corporation is also happy to accept contributions to the GPL and BSL code, so there is really no reason to do a fork, except for ones own personal gains. When it comes to code, it's usually very easy to see if code was backported or created independently, so this shouldn't be an issue.

athenot 10y ago

This is great from the perspective of contributing intellectual property back to the ecosystem. They are trying to balance the revenue aspect with growing an open community which benefits the product as a whole. My one concern is that the thrifty users will ride the expiration line, installing versions that don't cost money but which are outdated. I can see where that would be an acceptable tradeoff in many situations where the latest-and-greatest is not required. But from a security aspect I wonder if that also means that vulnerability fixes would only be available to the paying users. They are definitely worth paying for, no doubt; but would that then foster an ecosystem of not-really-patched installations out there? (Then again, that might not be that different from the current situation.)

montywi 10y ago
The old versions of MaxScale will of course get security and critical bug fixes. The MariaDB corporation will also accept patches to the GPL and BSL versions of the code.

markkit 10y ago

Actual license text: https://mariadb.com/bsl https://mariadb.com/bsl

Grishnakh 10y ago

When I see the abbreviation "BSL", I can't help but think it stands for "bullshit license".... However, it actually sounds like a great idea to me, and a great way for companies to make money licensing software to commercial users while still keeping it free and open source for individuals, while providing a safety mechanism in case the company goes belly-up.

johannes1234321 10y ago
There is nothing the individuals can do with the open source version. It's old and has bugs and maybe security issues. In theory they could look at the source of the "commercial" version, but then have to be careful - they can't change it and if they ever write code they have to be careful about not doing plagiarism.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  Sounds good to me; I don't see the problem. If you want to redistribute, then you need to use the old buggy version. I don't really see a problem here. If you want to use the latest-and-greatest in a non-commercial capacity, you can do just that. And it's open-source, so you can modify it all you want and use it. You just can't distribute it. What's the problem? No, it's not as Free as GPLed software, nor is it meant to be. It's meant to allow a company to make a profit on software licensed to other businesses or for commercial use, while still allowing it to be open-source, and allowing private individuals to use it without paying a license fee. (At least, that's how I read it from the article.) It sounds like a great way to balance the competing interests of a commercial software company, the users (both non-commercial and commercial), and the community at large. It would be a terrible license for basic infrastructure software like OpenSSH or PostgreSQL, but for business-oriented application software, it sounds absolutely perfect. (Note, again, what I've written above about the way the BSL works is what I've gleaned from reading the article; if I'm incorrect, someone please feel free to correct me.)

quickben 10y ago

Is he trying to sell mariaDB now too? I mean, it's genius from the business side. Unless i got the story wrong, he sold MySQL after people helped him create it. Forked it, and now it's turning the fork into MySQL/Oracle profit cow. Either somebody correct me, or I'm going to assume "for as long as there's are sheep..."

cwyers 10y ago
His MySQL fork, MariaDB, is still going to be GPL, because he doesn't have the ability to change the license on the code Oracle owns.
- quickben 10y ago
  Ah thanks, that makes sense now.
syshum 10y ago
WHile I despise this new licensing, your redition of history is not correct Monty sold MySQL to Sun, he believed Sun would be good steward of the project, provide it the resources it needed, and allow it to flourish remaining Open Source When Oracle bought Sun, Monty and most of the MySQL devs where very very very very very concerned that Orcale would be detrimental to MySQL going forward so they forked it and founded MariaDB to replace Oracle's mySQL Some of their fears never came to be, but Oracle has closed the development of mysql is many ways, it is not as bad as it was orginally feared, but it no where near as open as it was under Sun.
- johannes1234321 10y ago
  The fork already happend during the time with Sun.
  - syshum 10y ago
    The fork happened while the sale was happening.
- 10y ago

CraigJPerry 10y ago

Its easier to procure paid for software than open source in many large enterprises. There was a culture of fear for open source promulgated by proprietary vendors and major consultancies in the early 00's - the "know the facts" campaign by Gartner and Microsoft springs to mind. Although this idea is generally dead now, the scars live on in the purchasing and licencing approval flows at many large enterprises. I am familiar with several organisations where a paid for software licence can be acquired with nothing more than trivial approval for the spend. Yet adoption of an open source product requires multi layer approval of the licence and recording of licence risk against the project. There is a valid case for that due diligence but its not a particularly strong case and if it were the reason for this situation, then proprietary software licences would be subject to the same scrutiny.

pjmlp 10y ago
It is also easier to make a living from closed source, than open source. Not all types of software are profitable with consulting, books or donations.
corecoder 10y ago
Paid for software usually comes in two flavours: turnkey or with consultants. In both cases the promise is that the software will in the end run, and those who need to will actually be able to use it. Also, that the software does something that should be useful to you. Open source software comes "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. So, who is promising that the software will run, that people will be able to use it and that it does something actually useful to the large enterprise? If the enterprise has never used that software, long time employees have usually no professional experience with it, so it is risky have them install and run it. In my limited experience, adoption of open source software by large enterprises comes most of the times through consultants, hired not to install the software but to solve a business problem. The consultants promise to solve the problem with the software, and that the software will run etc.
- cyphar 10y ago
  > Open source software comes "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. As far as I'm aware, most proprietary licenses have the same disclaimer. Have you ever seen Oracle getting sued when their database segfaults and loses data (in a similar way that a contractor would get sued for building a bridge that crashes)? You usually pay for support contracts with big enterprises, which have external guarantees and experts on call. Luckily, free software companies provide the same services without taking the freedom from the users of that software.

trengrj 10y ago

Interesting concept, like how code will turn into GPL after a few years. Glad though that MariaDB is and could not be BSL.

simbalion 10y ago

They are switching to a BS License? Are we supposed to take this seriously?

Maskawanian 10y ago
And most retail shops use a POS system for their checkouts, what is your point?
- simbalion 10y ago
  https://twitter.com/VadimTk/status/766333511514992640 https://twitter.com/VadimTk/status/766333511514992640

evanelias 10y ago

Applying BSL to the MaxScale proxy is proving to be, so far, an unpopular decision among a large segment of the MySQL community. The TechCrunch article didn't address this specifically, but the license for MaxScale requires a MariaDB Enterprise Subscription if you use MaxScale with just 3 or more database servers at your company. Since MaxScale is a proxy, it isn't particularly useful for companies that only have 1 or 2 database servers, except as a very limited trial. So this move effectively makes MaxScale commercial software for most production use. This is a strange business decision, considering there are other third-party proxies available, such as ProxySQL, that have same (or better) functionality and no requirement for purchasing a commercial license. I also wonder how MariaDB Enterprise Subscription pricing works for companies that just want to use MaxScale to connect to stock Oracle MySQL or Percona Server MySQL? Seems strange to tie the licensing to MariaDB Enterprise even for companies that just want to use MaxScale alone. Although a good proxy takes a lot of development work, it's still tiny compared to building a relational database. I wouldn't expect the two to be priced the same.

jomamaxx 10y ago
You highlighted the limitations of the license: as soon as you're into commercial terms, and money starts changing hands - things start to get very situationally specific.
montywi 10y ago
Most usage of MaxScale is one of the following: - One Master with one Slave (for backup and high availability) - Galera with 2 masters and the Galera Arbitrator This covers possible 90% or more of the common usage cases. MaxScale is usually included in the MariaDB enterprise subscriptions and one can also get standalone licenses for MaxScale.

apo 10y ago

It's surprisingly hard to find the actual text of the Business Source License. Where is it? The link in the article points to a FAQ, which also does not appear link to the text of the license: https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-adopting A Google search did not turn up the text of the license itself.

edmccard 10y ago
https://mariadb.com/bsl https://mariadb.com/bsl

nickpsecurity 10y ago

This interesting given I brought up a similar model talking to people here. I agree with the founder that licensing trumps support agreements in terms of supporting development of the product. He didn't even mention amassing patent portfolios or defending patent suits. These are relevant given big tech uses them to stop competition. Development, sales to increase amount of it, and legal investments all take much money. Licensing from paid users is best way to get that. So, how to balance that versus wants of OSS community that might test, contribute code, and so on? One thing I posted was that the license would come with source, allow fixes, allow local extensions, and simply block redistribution unless its to paying customers. Covers most OSS benefits. To address lockin, I suggested provisions to cap what they can charge for given software and (relevant here) make it go GPL if it's abandoned. Only got two reviews on this so far. I'm interested in getting some more. I think I've gotten pretty close to getting almost all benefits of OSS software while ensuring it stays paid for. Btw, one can also give out free or supported-at-cost copies to those help out in docs, debugging, whatever. One could also do free, AS-IS licenses for small businesses or startups so long as their revenue is below certain point. The only thing I didn't try to do is restrict by number of CPU's, servers, whatever. It seems natural in mainframes, clouds, enterprise, whatever. I'm just concerned about its effects on how product is used in terms of innovation or robustness. One example is desktop virtualization at level of individual apps for security or failure isolation purposes. Your user experience at OS level is still about the same given you're using same OS to run same apps. The deficiency of OS in isolation means you had to add a virtualization solution. So, should people be charged an extra $100+ an instance to make up for that deficiency? Or same thing in high-availability setup where extra nodes don't contribute to throughput? So, I'm undecided on usage licensing.

bad_user 10y ago
> Covers most OSS benefits No it doesn't, it's not even close. Other companies tried to bring this same argument but failed. Some people think that the primary benefit of Open Source is having some level of access to the source code and fortunately this didn't fly, in spite of the effort of companies, such as Microsoft with their "shared source" initiatives. Open source [1] brings with it two major benefits: 1. the ability to use the software for any purpose, any field of endeavor, with no discrimination, for any business model. By your own admission, your license would be incompatible with such a contract. 2. open source can be forked, just like Monty here forked MySQL and (arguably) kept it from dying. The importance of this cannot be overstated. But more to the point, you say you'd allow "fixes" and "local extensions", yet restrict redistribution to paying customers, but well, you clearly have boundaries in mind for derivate works, as you clearly only want to allow small improvements. Can those improvements be redistributed as source code, for the benefit of others? And if not, then clients could find themselves in a gray area. For example what happens if these clients hire contractors to provide those improvements? That's always possible with open source, just like how it is (still) possible to take your car to any repair shop. You can quickly see how this can go out of hand. And the restriction for paying customers sounds awful - first of all, what's a "paying customer"? Do money need to exchange hands? Are trial versions permitted? What if you want an alternative business model, ads-based or whatever. Etc. But the biggest benefit of Open Source is the right to fork. First of all, this implies that ownership over such software is achieved by anybody that wants it. And it's an important right, especially if things go wrong. You say that you could maybe have a clause somewhere, or a promise, to make the software GPL should it become abandoned. Oh well, what is abandonment? Plus, abandonment is not the only bad thing that could happen. You could also steer the project in a direction that people don't want, you could intentionally cripple it, you could raise prices so much as to make it unfordable and when you get bored of it, you could simply sell it to another company. Notice how neither of these conditions do not classify as abandonment. Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against proprietary software, heck, I would be a hypocrite if I wouldn't admit to developing and making a living off of proprietary software myself. But I see marketing attempts to redefine what Open Source means, only because Open Source is marketable, being extremely attractive at least to developers and for good reasons. And look, I get it, we need to make a living, but it's dishonest. Your product can survive and flourish as proprietary, but stop with the bullshit and call a spade a spade. [1] https://opensource.org/osd-annotated https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

jomamaxx 10y ago

This licence is the basis for a business model - and should not be considered along side gpl, mit etc.. It's not particularly relevant to the discussion. This is a business and commercial issue, not a 'details of the license' issue. The text could take on so many forms, and it's not particularly useful unless you're a very startup and can't afford a lawyer. Example: What is the price? What are the terms of payment? What about discounts? What is a 'CPU' when you're using virtualized hardware? How do the terms hold up against IP rights in the rest of the world? (Europe has very different laws for Software). It's great that there's some text that a company can grab, but any company that is going to be licensing software should eventually consult a lawyer about this.