[AccessD] Clearing the decks for MySQL

 > Someone said MARIADB is the same source code as MYSQL ?


MariaDB is the same source code base, taken from MySQL.  Take what I say with a heaping handful of 
salt but my understanding is that the license for an open source project states something like -

You may take this source base.  If you modify any of this base code you must offer the changes back 
to the community.  You may however add entirely new code for functionality that does not exist in 
the source base, and if you do you do not have to offer that back to the community.

I am not intimately familiar with the history (Perhaps Arthur can step up here) but it seems that 
Sun was the "originator of" the source base.  When they made any modifications of any kind including 
major new enhancements, they were adding those mods to the source base and they were available under 
the open source license.

Oracle bought Sun.  Oracle decided to hold onto major new enhancements and not offer them back to 
the community.  Thus Oracle is building MySQL editions for sale which use the code base plus their 
enhancements.

MariaDB took the code base and "forked it" and started adding major new enhancements which are kept 
in the open source community.  From what I can tell, because it is in the public domain, Oracle can 
if they wish take the enhancements that MariaDB makes and add those into the base that they make 
available for free, and because that is in their "for sale" version they can use those enhancements 
in their "for sale" versions.

But we will never see their "for sale" enhancements without paying their licensing fees.

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

Reality is what refuses to go away
when you do not believe in it

On 11/25/2011 8:44 AM, Mark Simms wrote:
> Someone said MARIADB is the same source code as MYSQL ?
>
>
> I find it hard to believe that greedy Larry Ellison made that kind of deal
> with the originators of MYSQL.
> It's not like him to permit competition !! Larry loves to not just "level
> the playing field", but to destroy it.
>
>
>