Re: FW: [webmaster] Comparison to MySQL

Justin Clift wrote:

> Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>
>>>> -- Single-Company Project: the MySQL Project is owned and controlled by a
>>>>single company, MySQL AB. This means that the project lives or dies with
>>>>that company, which is currently venture-capital funded.
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>>This is also inaccurate as MySQL is GPL so the project would live on.
>>
>> They don't have a development community so that would have to be formed
>> if the company folds, and as we can see from Firebird/SapDB, that isn't
>> trivial.
>
> True, but that doesn't take away from Joshua's point at all. He is
> accurate that MySQL is GPL, and it would live on. Their interested
> install base is large enough to establish a new developer community if
> the MySQL company went belly up too.

Unfortunately that is not true.

Just because something is GPL does not mean it will live on. The point
that they "require" everyone to sign over the copyright of every code
contribution (they call it "donation") in order to add it to the source
tree prevents serious contributors from doing so. There has been not a
single, substantial code contribution to the server up to this day.

Think about it; I fixed the rule system, I created PL/Tcl, PL/pgSQL,
NUMERIC, had my fingers in the referential integrity stuff, TOAST and a
bunch of other things of lesser importance like the stat views and other
crap ... if I would start my own business now and would use PostgreSQL
"professional" (read commercial), I would have to pay for it? I don't
think so! That's why I would not think for a second to contribute to
such a project, and that is why they do not get "that many"
contributions to the core engine in the first place.

Jan

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