Sun recently experienced a hail of criticism when the company hinted that some add-ons for the popular open source database, MySQL, might be available only for paid customers.
Today Marten Mickos, former CEO at MySQL AB and now senior vice president of Sun's database group, backed off the statement, saying that Sun has not made an official decision.
Sun, which acquired MySQL earlier this year for over $1 billion dollars, raised the ire of the MySQL community when it suggested that some high-end features due to arrive in MySQL 6 would be available only to paying customers.
A shrill chorus of critics on Slashdot and throughout the online world loudly condemned the potential move and accused Sun and MySQL of betraying the community that has helped make it successful. MySQL claims users in the tens of millions.
Mickos responded to the Slashdot post saying:
However, Sun has made it clear that no final decision has been made and despite the inflammatory Slashdot headlines, MySQL isn't going closed source.
In fact, even the high end tools aren't necessarily going to be proprietary. Such a move might be bad news for paying customers as well, since it would mean the tools they pay for wouldn't enjoy the widespread community testing that helps ensure they are usable and secure.
Even if Sun ultimately does end up making some MySQL tools proprietary, it's very unlikely to affect the average user. The core database components would remain free and open source, only the extra tools would be affected.
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