Comments on: MySQL forks itself with Drizzle

The right to fork is a cardinal right in open source. Most don't exercise it against themselves, however.

[royrusso]

How is this a fork? It's really just a branch... or a slimmed-down version of the enterprise product (which, btw, we at LoopFuse love)

I'd also be amazed if Sun/MySQL didn't keep all IP rights over this branch. So calling it a fork, is incorrect.

I know, I know... sensationalist headlines = more money in CNet/Asay's pockets. ;-)

[Matt Asay]

It's possible that you don't know the whole story here, Roy. Not a sensational headline at all.

[arjenlentz]

Most of the work is on Drizzle is actually done by outsiders, not Sun employees. Admittedly many of them are former MySQL employees, and other active MySQL community members.

Anyway, since the work being done and code being written is not by Sun employees, Sun does not own the IP. In addition, they have not signed the Sun contributor agreement foo.

So Drizzle is wholly outside Sun in terms of IP reach. It is already multi-owned now, just like the Linux codebase is not owned by a single person or entity.
And this can be a good thing. Some people are just not comfortable putting a lot of energy into a project otherwise. And active projects need a lot of energy to reach critical mass. It also means that any commercialisation cannot come from dual licensing foo.

[royrusso]

Yep... sounds like a fork. ;-)

[ShaunRConnolly]

Roy,

To me, a "branch" implies the same CVS/SVN system or a process for synchronizing the code between the two source control systems.

Go to https://launchpad.net/drizzle and look around.
"The code is originally derived from MySQL.". So unless they plan on periodically somehow synchronizing the code with the original derivation, it looks like a fork to me dude.

And I don't think creating a fork is a bad thing here given the goals of the new project.

Oh yeah...and re: your sensationalist headlines point...I would have made it:
"Drizzle to MySQL: Fork you"

:-) I joke...I joke.

[royrusso]

Fork has a negative connotation, to me. Branch may not be accurate either. Its just a new product... perhaps one there is a need for.

(I would think there would be push to synchronize code, patches, etc...)... but wth do I know? ;-)

[scurryn]

Matt -- this is a project, not a product.

It allows Sun Labs to do some experimenting on database technology, without impacting/distracting the current version of MySQL.

Steve

[The_Decider]

Shh, that is supposedly highly technical and top secret information!

One thing about CNET is that they never let facts or even reasonableness get in the way of a story.

[The_Decider]

It is like calling each boated version of Vista a fork. Or Windows Media Center a fork.

You are out to lunch on this.

For an OSS evangelist your knowledge of software and OSS is alarmingly lacking.

It seems obvious that this product which is definitely not a fork, is perhaps a sqlite type of experiment. More info would be needed.

[t8]

Forking might have been done so that Sun can sell the bigger database and still have the open source one out there for free. Like RedHat Enterprise and Fedora. If they intend on selling MySQL only, then they need to create the free version before someone else does it. Sun may intend on putting in features to rival the bigger databases out there.