I like to say “in my opinion” to avoid being obnoxious. As I said before, I was deliberately obnoxious in the title and introduction of this post to make my point. What I said is easily and independently verifiable: access to the source code, and the right to change it, is not sufficient for a product’s _development methodology_ to be Open Source. There is no question that MySQL’s development is the reverse of Open Source: it is closed, monopolistic, tightly guarded and even exclusionist at times.

We could go round and round on this for days, and I’m afraid we will not see eye to eye.

When talking about opinions, for me MySQL is open source, because the sources a, not surprisingly, open - one can download them, read and modify them. That was the reason why I chose MySQL in the first place when I needed to implement a fulltext search solution but was too lazy to code i/o, client-server protocol, storage, and all other stuff. It was in 1998 and MySQL wasn’t even GPL back then, but the sources were open.

Again, this document is quite narrowly focused and incomplete IMO. (And I did know about it before you mentioned it, by the way).

Sergei, that’s a partial, very narrow definition: it’s the necessary but not sufficient conditions of distribution and so on. That document doesn’t address the breadth of scope introduced in the OSI website (including the intro paragraph on the front page), key books from key Open Source figures (including the ones who invented the movement), and the general public’s concept of Open Source. If that document is the sum total of Open Source, a lot of leaders of the Open Source movement are spreading misinformation. But I don’t think so. I think the spirit of Open Source is much more relevant than the letter of that definition.

Kevin, I did know all the things you mentioned, and I left them out intentionally. I might have profitably omitted mention of the CLA, too; it is a hot-button issue (as proven by the other comments on this post — why is it a hot-button issue, BTW?) and that distracted from the focus of the post. And yes, I would absolutely say that a project that accepts no outside contributions is not Open Source.

Jo, I think if I had not mentioned the CLA prominently you and I would find we have a lot in common. However, in general I would say that to get code into the server is much harder than signing a piece of paper, and much harder than it should be. I also don’t think lack of transparency is the problem. Just telling people what is going on is not the same as giving them a say in the process. MySQL has focused pretty hard on being more transparent, but I think this effort is not the end of the road. (It is definitely a precondition to more truly opening up the server, and I applaud it even though I don’t think it’s all that’s needed). I do look forward to seeing what changes Sun makes.

Zach, I appreciate your comments on the CLA; I will write more on what I think about the CLA another time. I’m not sure that the quality bar is really the issue here, either. Community code is sometimes higher quality even than internal code. I’d name some bug reports, but I don’t want to make personal enemies out of the associated developers. However you look at it, I think the… ummmm… not-so-good release and development model is responsible for the fear of poor quality code, and putting restrictions on the contribution pipeline is a symptom of something deeper. I and many others have pointed out that there is a much better way to vet code for quality: let the community do it. Finally, your point about ‘different models’ is very much along the lines of what I meant to say with this post.

To wrap up: I knew this post would generate strong reactions, and I intentionally wrote the headline and first few sentences to bring my view into sharp focus. I felt it was very important to say what I’ve tried to say in this post, regardless of differences of opinion. I’m actually happy that dissenting voices are appearing here. It shows that you care. Thanks for writing in.

I think having a CLA is a good thing; it helps us make sure that we know where code comes from and are not succeptible to some vague SCO-like accusation where we cannot determine the provenance of source code. Is it a perfect system? No, but in our view its good to have some controls in place.

We have been slow to incorporate contributions, and honestly, the quality bar is very high. So sometimes after trying to work with contributors, we have rejected code that does not meet our quality standards. (Not that the effort to contribute code isn’t welcomed, but the last thing we want to do is destabilize the core of the database because someone is not familiar with the internal architecture. We don’t always get it right, but it pays to be conservative in this area. (Note, the work by Google is great and we’re actively working with them and the InnoDB team to figure out the best way to test and then incorporate this code.)

BTW, we’ve also kicked off some work with Google’s Summer of Code program again this year. More information is available here: http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/SummerOfCode2008Ideas

Bottom line: we are trying to improve our responsiveness in reviewing and accepting contributions and it’s an area that Jeffrey Pugh, VP of R&D is very interested in improving. (He is also working directly with some of the contributors you’ve mentioned.) But our actions here will speak louder than my words.

Of course, different products and projects have different models. MySQL has a company-led development model which is very different from some other open source projects which are community-led. I’m not saying it’s better, but it is different.

Still, there is room for improvement, and we appreciate the input. I don’t know that we will satisfy everyone’s definition of open source at all times, but we’re listening and learning.

–Zack

All non-trivial software has bugs, but my point was that the RC release is looking pretty good. And of course, it all depends on the inflow of bugs. So if folks want to test out the latest 5.1 RC and find bugs, that would be helpful. Better if we find them sooner rather than later and we always appreciate the help.

Sorry it took a while to respond to this posting; I was on vacation at the time.

–Zack

But yes there’s a problem in the MySQL case: You already quoted it but missed that point: It’s the part about “transparent processes” - that is what is missing with MySQL. MySQL has been a company shutting all information down while preparing for going public, now they were bought by a company which is way more open so I’d expect that to change, Sun might not be perfect and fully open either (I don’t know that) but a big step more open at least.