Re: mysql.org

[John Jacques]

Thomas J Keller wrote:

>  The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that someone needs to
> offer the following observations:
>   It is unfortunate that so many people within this community are so eager to
> assume the worst about a company, simply because they ARE a company.  Not all
> corporations are Mickey$lu$h (I guess my biases in this regard are obvious), and
> not all corporate leaders are Bill Gates.

   Hello here is my observation:
    We the MySQL community are and have been treated exceptionally well and far beyond
any other company I have heard of. What ticks us off is when our community is threatened
by an organization posing to be the real thing. It's been a few months since I needed to
visit the mysql web site. My heart dropped when I went to mysql.org and their was a new
site were I had always gone for mysql. Then they wanted me to register. I figured the
good old days of downloading mysql were gone and they sold out. I thought they were just
like ORAC$$ and M$SQL.

    It wasn't until I searched the mailing list that I was able to find they were at
mysql.com. Then I got ticked off for being betrayed ---or tricked.

    I use MySQL for personal use and do not have thousands of dollars to waste on  a
competitors sql server, nor the "super computer" needed to run those resource hogs. I
think it is safe to say that we all feel like we are part of the MySQL project even
though we are just end users. Better yet, MySQL is part of our lives. There is no
freeware or shareware or GPL'ed software that even comes close to the PROFESSIONAL
programming and support done by the MySQL team.
    I can do things with my C programming and MySQL that I could only imagine doing if
MySQL didn't exsist as it does today.

    So, it wasn't that we were eager to assume the worst, but we felt our lively hood
threatened right along side with MySQL AB. Some of us spend out lives at the keyboard.

If they had a big bold statement on the top of their home page saying something like:
"We are supporting the MySQL community at mysql.com by offering commercial grade software
bundles."
Then right off the bat everyone would know:
    1) they are not the real thing
    2) you could go to mysql.com as you always did
    3) if your boss or clients refuse to use gpl'd software then you might be able to
talk them into getting this package.

    Then there would not have been the registration problem, nor the fee problem, and the
only thing left would have been the domain name copyright and people probably wouldn't
have gotten involved with it.

John
    It's like that TV shopping channel that sent serious legal letters to every domain
name that had a 3 letter match to their TV name and told them to stop using it. They said
each domain name hurt their business and copyrights and bla bla bla. They took down many
web sites.