MySQL reserves features for paying customers

In another blog post, user Paul Saduauskas threatened to abandon MySQL in favor of rival open-source databases in response to the hoarding of features for the enterprise version. For instance, Saduauskas said that the PostgreSQL database is "fast enough these days" and is "much more standards-compliant" than MySQL is.

"Hopefully Sun will see the light, and realize that continuing down this path will destroy MySQL and the community," he wrote. "Free software developers (including myself) are a fickle bunch, and can jump ship or fork a project with startling speed."

In a response to a blog post about the new approach by MySQL consultant Jeremy Cole, Mickos said the move is part of an effort to ensure "that there is a viable revenue-generating business around MySQL."

Mickos also hinted that features initially reserved for paying users may eventually be made freely available, and he noted that there's nothing to stop anyone from developing open-source versions of the online backup capabilities. In addition, he contended that what MySQL is doing is no different from what other open-source database vendors have done with some of their technologies.

Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, an online photo-sharing service that is a paying MySQL customer, defended the new plan as a way to keep companies like his satisfied -- and paying their subscription fees.

"Personally, I think this is awesome," MacAskill blogged. "Don't get me wrong -- I love open source. But let's not forget that MySQL is a business. They have customers, and they have to solve those customers' problems."

That process results in "a virtuous cycle where the community benefits directly as MySQL thrives financially," he added. "In a very real way, without companies like mine, there wouldn't be a new backup tool at all -- let alone the differences this debate is focused on."

But Cole, a former database administrator at Yahoo who now works at consulting firm Proven Scaling, said in his blog post this week that the move could hurt enterprise users just as much as it does nonpaying ones.

"The size of the user base for MySQL Enterprise is much smaller than for MySQL Community," Cole wrote. "That means these critical features will be tested by only a few of [MySQL's] customers. So, in effect, they will be giving their paying customers real, true, untested code. How is this supposed to work?"

Even if the plan to restrict some features to MySQL Enterprise users was already in motion before MySQL's acquisition by Sun, the change is in harmony with Sun's need to financially justify the US$1 billion it spent to acquire MySQL, argued an executive from another open-source database vendor.

"As the first major announcement since their acquisition, it's clear that Sun's invisible hand is at work, focused less on the true meaning of open source and more on revenue generation," Deb Woods, vice president of product development at Ingres, said via e-mail. "MySQL's latest move is certainly one that we will not introduce."