MariaDB CEO: People who want things free also want to have very nice vacations MariaDB is facing up to the reality of becoming a grown-up software company. Following its stock market debut late last year, it must strike a balance between the demands of investors and its heritage in the open source software movement, CEO Michael Howard told The Register. The day before its technology conference last week …
> the same people who want things free also want to have very nice vacations.
This is a good way to put it. "Things should be zero cost, but also everyone should be well paid" is definitely an idea validated by years of low interest rates. I hope they find a way, as it would be nice if it were zero cost for as many people as possible, but the transition between paid and free can become very tricky.
I had a similar problem with it. I fully agree that free software, using licenses that are compatible with the FSF/OSI's definitions, is very nice. I use and donate to a lot of such software, and I view the license as an asset. Where I disagreed with the FSF was in the attitude that proprietary software was either evil or should be prohibited. As I understand some of the things that caused Stallman to start advocating for this, his problem was of theft of his work for inclusion into proprietary software, which makes a lot more sense as something to hate than the existence of the proprietary software altogether. And yet, a lot of the prominent people in the movement would frequently argue against something simply on the basis that somebody was selling it, with several proprietary companies being characterized as complete monsters (I think you all know the main one, but they weren't the only one).
Then again, he's not the only person to have taken such a view and there are people who take a much stronger stance in opposition to the existence of copyright. They usually fail to provide any explanation of how they think the free creative work will happen, which might be wise of them because, when I've seen a plan, it has never had any plausibility.
In MariaDB's case, I will not pretend it's open source, and I won't be picking it for its license freedom. I may still choose it as a useful piece of software, though, because I'm not opposed to buying some software if it's useful for my purposes.
Services. Software developers sell support and customisations. Musicians make money from concerts. Artists sell art in physical form.
This is true for a lot of people already. Its people at the top that make money from royalties. Only the biggest authors really make a living from writing books (assuming they do not get ripped off - look up what Disney did to star wars books authors like Timothy Zahn), money from music sales mostly goes into a tiny number of pockets, etc.
It is evident that people do write open source software without charging for licenses so clearly stuff does get done without the income from copyright. In fact there are many places where FOSS has mostly replaced proprietary software (server OSes, browser engine, languages). There are a lot of different reasons why people do it for fund it.
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This...where authors are concerned, that is actually changing...because you no longer need access to industrial sized printing facilities and distribution services to reach a wide audience. It's similar story with music artists...you can easily make a living as a musician now (if you're good) without a record label etc.
It's really only record labels and publishers that are up in arms...most artists don't care...because the revenue they can get independently is more or less the same as they would get from a record label etc (after the label / publisher has taken their massive cut)...and as you pointed out, actual record sales pale in comparison to concert ticket sales, merch etc.
Before someone jumps in about the merch (I see you over there, waving your arms around)...that's trademark law, not copyright law...totally different...in fact, the difference between trademark law and copyright law is where a lot of people get confused. I agree with trademark law, that mostly makes sense. You want to ensure that nobody passes themselves off as you. That is more useful that copyright law in ensuring that something is genuine.
Look at projects like Wordpress. Yeah, I know, we love to hate it...but the core product is free both in terms of it's code and it's license. They make money from the services they provide on top of the core product. They leverage their deep knowledge of the product, not the product itself...who knows how to best host/integrate Wordpress outside of Wordpress themselves? Very few I'd imagine.
Furthermore, Wordpress itself sits on top of other Open Source giants...PHP, MySQL, Apache, Linux etc etc. I'm sure some cashflow from Wordpress heads backwards and lands in these projects from time to time when Wordpress needs deeper support...I would also imagine that Wordpress has probably contributed to these projects at some point. So it all trades backwards over time.
There are other projects going the other way as well...such as WooCommerce for example, and the massive plugin marketplace...which Wordpress probably takes a slice of.
The last thing Wordpress needs to sell, is Wordpress.
The same applies to an awful lot of open source projects.
Should we be able to copyright code? No. Because if you get your business model right, you don't need to...if someone is set on using Wordpress because it is easy to use, has a decent support infrastructure around it and has tons of services that you can invest in to improve your experience...why would they go elsewhere? If you compete based on quality of service, you don't have to worry about someone ripping off your product...because if someone does rip off your product, they still have to have the knowledge, expertise and foresight to compete with you on quality...and if your core product is free, there is no incentive for a potential client to jump ship...because it won't even save them money. The competing product has to be really, really good...at which point, the code is probably nothing like yours anyway...so you would have shaky grounds for a copyright claim...only the lawyers would win...it would also be a fair cop for the competition, because they have genuinely provided a better solution and ecosystem...you failed to keep up. There is nobody to blame there other than yourself.
Cloud. That's what kills the consulting/support market. Everybody's stuff is on the cloud now, so, given the requirement for a robust, backed-up database service, do you pay a bunch of consultants to set you up a HA mariadb cluster, with a backup scheme, or just pay AWS/Azure for their offering. The cloud providers famously grab all the open-source they can and re-sell it as a service, with no payback to the authors.
"Musicians make money from concerts."
You would think, but it is not the case in a lot of situations. It is better today, but in years past, concerts, ended up costing the performers more than they were aware of.
Many recording contracts offset the costs of live concerts with the proceeds from record sales/downloads. In many cases those costs are inflated by the record company to deliberately drain the proceeds. Many artists find themselves in a 2 album contract where they make absolutely no money from the 1st 2 albums and any profits they see are all dependent on the 3rd album. This can be a recipe for disaster and bankruptcy!
If you are an established act, you can make a lot of money on concerts, if you are starting out, you can get seriously screwed by the scumbag record companies. Also remember, in a lot of these contracts the artist does not own the music, the record company does!
Like I said things are better today, many artist are aware of the terrible practices of these companies. Streaming has allowed many artist to circumvent the record companies completely.
"look up what Disney did to star wars books authors like Timothy Zahn"
Not sure of the point you're trying to make there. I googled Disney and Timothy Zahn.
According to this interview (8 April 23, https://www.thepopverse.com/star-wars-timothy-zahn-expanded-universe-thrawn), Zahn had a 3 book trilogy offer back in the 90s. 16 books of that trilogy later, his works (and others) are still in print today with the blessing of Disney under the "Star Wars Legends" moniker. Since the Disney takeover, he's written 6 more books for the new Disney canon, and in his latest interview, he's got more on the way.
And why would hundreds of thousands of software engineers be hired and paid as "consultants" when the companies monetizing their work already have the results of their labours??
Think man. Exactly how many engineers are, today as we speak, on Redhat's payroll versus how many other engineers constructed the very code Redhat markets and sells support for?? How many in Ubuntu, et al, versus how many millions of manhours in the actual code being marketed?
That's the flaw in the FOSS belief: they'll pay to keep food in the mouths of workers, because. Hasn't happened in the history of capitalism, "because", but I guess wishful thinking will change reality this time around.
The government of the time applied the principle of laissez faire, i.e. let capitalists do their stuff. Which they did.
If that was a failure of government then it also condemns capitalism freed from governmental oversight.
I assume, therefore, that you approve of maximal regulation.
-A.
And yet basically the entire arc of human technological progress in the past 20 odd years has been on the back of FOSS. So apparently it does work.
Listen, my previous work is just my business card. If I want future work, I make sure my work is good enough to be invited to perform again. Be that in an auditorium, office or ALM.
This idea that I should collect forever forward on work I did before is actually, I think, one of the flaws in the current social construct.
I see it really upset people. I don't know what to tell you. It would be nice to get royalties. But even the root of that word kind of points to a concept that I personally don't care for and represents an injustice.
> That's the flaw in the FOSS belief: they'll pay to keep food in the mouths of workers, because
There's no "they". If I make a project and no one uses it, should I get paid? Why?
If I make a project and specifically licence it so people can use it for nothing, should I get paid? Why?
Not everything is workers vs the world. It's far, far too simplistic. It was too simplistic when Marx thought all work was like working in a factory, and it's too simplistic today.
And this is based on all the consulting jobs out there for someone who wrote code that we're already using for free? It might work for some people, and it has worked out well for people who write most used components: the corporate involvement with Linux, for example. It doesn't work that way for every developer, and it certainly would not for the many programmers who work in the areas where proprietary software is more common than open source is. You don't have to hire the original developer to consult unless you need a lot of knowledge. If a bit of knowledge will do, you can have somebody else consult and have them read the code first. After all, if Microsoft Office was free and open source, would you be in line to ask the developers to work for you because you need their help to make Word do something, or would you just use the programs the way a paying user does today?
The same thing is true for creative workers. I'm interested to see the reports of an author who makes their money from paid performances of their books. How about the person who takes photos selling tickets to watch them display those photos on stage? How about the movie actors inviting people to watch them put on a stage performance of the movie, minus the special effects, scenes that don't fit in an auditorium, scenes involving too much stuff, etc. Your statement only really applies to music performers, and it doesn't necessarily work great for them either. What happens if a bandmember gets injured and can't perform for a while. What if somebody wrote the music or lyrics but doesn't play in the band? It sounds like you'd just hope their friends are generous and share the money, because without copyright, those people wouldn't benefit from their work, even when there is a source of money that remains.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have no clue why you think I validated your point. My comment boils down to listing a large number of situations where your ideas of where payment comes from are incorrect, acknowledging that there are a few exceptions. You can't guarantee to be one of those exceptions, and if we don't want to stifle creative work, we will have to either keep copyright the way it is or come up with a much better plan for replacing it than hoping that nothing will change just because we say so.
Content creators would perform for paying audiences, or, in the case of software developers, consult. It's actually not that complicated.
That may work at the top end of the market (Think Beyonnce, AC/DC, Damien Hurst, et al) but what about all those at the lower end? Smaller bands barely break even on their gigs - which is why they're always pushing the merch (T-Shirts, mugs, books, CDs, DVDs, etc)
On top of that, you've got all the allegations about the tour promotors & managers making more money than the artists. And let's not get into the rant about many acts miming during their concerts. (I've even seen a mid-level artist provide their own pre-recorded audience applause)
You've then got the issue of constantly being on tour. Because unless, again, you're at the top, people are unlilkely to travel far to see you and your local audience will soon tire of you. Being on tour is not glamorous: It's hell.
Finally, how many times have you heard about an artist being broke when alive yet their work increases in value many orders of magnitude after their death? (What was that alleged quote about Elvis' death: "Great carear move"?)
I'm always frustrated by the FOSS argument that fails to account for the other developers who exist elsewhere in the market.
"I choose to make free software because *I* have another source of income, so *I* will be OK."
What does it mean for all of the other software developers who want to make a living in a market where competing products are given away for free? It means those people go hungry.
It shows a disturbing lack of empathy.
Who will make the next new web browser, or PC OS, or Server OS, or smartphone OS, or database, or FTP client, or TCP/IP stack, or web server, or photo viewer, or <choose from dozens of other examples>?
No one will, obviously, because there is no way they could make a profit from doing so.
So innovation stops.
Or worse, the software they make will be 'monetized' with relentless privacy theft and ads, or perhaps malware.
And no, I'm not a software developer, so the FOSS debate doesn't impact me directly at all. I'm just sad for those who are, or might want to be.
What does it mean for all of the other software developers who want to make a living in a market where competing products are given away for free? It means those people go hungry.
But they're choosing to do that.
They don't have to give away their work for free.
This is the kind of bullshit proponents of "Free" anything fail to understand.
And yet it did the trick. What about all those coders that came up to speed in a field because FOSS was available without a barrier of entry?
FOSS goes against the grain and conventional wisdom of our current economic system and I'm amazed and delighted how well it worked out.
It has it's share of parasites of course, like Apple for example, but that was to be expected and can seemingly be tolerated. Enough ticks may bring down the host after all, but that remains to be seen. On the innovation front alone the outcome was nothing but spectacular.
I've argued that proprietary software is good and worth supporting in other comments in this topic, but I'm afraid I'll have to take the other side on this one:
"What does it mean for all of the other software developers who want to make a living in a market where competing products are given away for free? It means those people go hungry."
This tends not to be a great argument. The argument boils down to "never do anything that will cause problems for someone doing the same thing". People write free software because they enjoy doing it and they want the result. It's not a crime that they give it away, and it means that anyone who wants it can get a copy. Sure, now someone can't make the same thing and sell it, but nobody was required to have that opportunity or to keep that opportunity in existence. Developers can make their own product that does something different and try to sell it, they could add their feature to my code if the license permits and sell that as a fork, or they can find a different project to work on. I'm not going to hide my code so that someone else can make money by reinventing and selling it.
Consider a parallel. I'm going to open a restaurant on a street that will sell good food for cheap prices. What does this mean for the existing restaurants that charge more for their food? Probably, it means they will lose some business from customers coming over to my place. This will be a problem for them, but it's not my responsibility to refrain from opening a restaurant or charge higher prices so they can keep everything the same. If they find that I'm more popular, they might have to change their plan to appeal to their customers. The same thing is true of software. If someone finds that people don't express much interest in a certain kind of software because it already exists, they can develop their version anyway and attempt to convince people that their innovations are better than what's out there, or they can turn their attention to something else where the existing options are not sufficient. Both options have worked. Your own list provides examples:
"web browser": Anyone using Brave out there? I don't, but people do. That's a new browser, with commercial elements, from a company that thought they could do a better job than the existing browsers. People use it, even though other ones are free.
"PC OS, or smartphone OS": In both cases, those are not universally open source products even though both have open source components. And of course people are developing new ones, in some cases commercial ones. Sailfish OS, for example, is a commercial smartphone OS and they made some money selling it as a core for Russia's government phone system. It's not that popular, but it has been done.
"Server OS": People make new server OSes all the time. Can you name a cloud provider that doesn't have their own variant of Linux, which they think has some advantage which will attract people to their cloud?
"database": This article is about a commercial database writer. In this article is a link to an older article that lists a bunch of other modern, commercial database companies. Most of those are still around and still commercial.
"FTP client": Yes, probably there are more of those being written, but you may be right that there's not a lot of companies building that as their core product. Is that such a problem? Are there features you want or need in an FTP client that you can't get and are willing to pay for? I can't think of any, so if I had infinite resources to hire programmers, I wouldn't ask any of them to write a new FTP client. Many pieces of software are in this area where, unless they have a new idea, we don't really need a ton of new options when the existing ones could be maintained and do just as well.
There are plenty of profitable open source businesses. You make money from services (and the popularity of SaaS makes that viable).
Maria DB has revenues of around $13m quarter (so not far short of a $100m/year and up 30% on last year). It would be profitable if not for very high spending on sales and marketing and R & D. The high spending is probably justified by the growth.
Isn't a lot of SaaS selling open source software as a service? ;)
Maria DB has revenues of around $13m quarter (so not far short of a $100m/year and up 30% on last year). It would be profitable if not for very high spending on sales and marketing and R & D. The high spending is probably justified by the growth.
But would it still have that revenue if it reduced sales/marketing and R&D though?
They would probably lose that 30% revenue growth but keep current sales - it takes a lot less sales and marketing or R & D spend to maintain revenues than to increase them, and especially to increase them that first. it is exactly what the managers of a cash cow stage (mature market, no growth expectations) business do.
Their "cloud related services" (e.g. hosted DB) revenues more than doubled.
I personally do not see it as due to validation by low interest rates. For me, the fundamental cause has always been around, only more so lately: entitlement. Everyone nowadays expects everything for themselves and free software is just another entitlement of their expectations, the fact that someone has to feed themselves at the other end of the FOSS ecosystem's chain...just isn't their problem. As long as *they* get well paid themselves.
As well as forming a commercial offer to PostgreSQL users, the move will see MariaDB increase its contributions to the PostgreSQL open source community, Howard said.
That sounds a lot like the prospect of being a services company is more appealing than one that develops its own open source database. And, indeed, caught between Oracle's improved MySQL and Postgres doesn't look like a good place to be.
I smell similarities with Mozilla. Let's take the code from a Netscape and make a new browser and email client, rewriting them, etc. OK.
That's done. We've saved the world and become a popular browser. Let's take our eye off the ball and make a file transfer service. Let's make a new OS. Let's turn Thunderbird into a steaming heap. Let's watch as our browser market share becomes irrelevant, used mostly by self-elected 'power users'. Let's become the 2%.
-> We have a whole team of Postgres engineers
It would be better is MariaDB stuck to MariaDB. I've read the article and I know what MariaDB is doing. But they are stepping away from MariaDB by doing this, no matter how they justify it. MariaDB seems to want to be a Swiss army knife, some sort of glue for databases. If I want Postgres I use Postgres. If I want MySQL/MariaDB I use those. I don't want some glue to get in the way.
Maria DB is the escape plan for those who want to avoid the red tentacles, although I believe that innodb is still entwined anyway.
I would be happy with a scheme where any OS software employed in a role that contributes to a profit ought to share a tiny percentage of that profit with the authors. But what little me is happy with doesn't really matter to anyone.
There is no balance.
Investors want money. Lenders want their money back.
Open Source does not generate money. As Red Hat has demonstrated, the only money you can make out of Open Source is support.
So, either MariaDB gets revenue out of support, or it dies.
Or the code goes private and a company is created to milk it.
That would be interesting to see. A first, as such.
I doubt it would work. The code would get forked to yet another Open Source license and things would go on, most likely. The investors will be pissed.
Hi!
"Open Source does not generate money. As Red Hat has demonstrated, the only money you can make out of Open Source is support"
You forget about dual licensing of Free Software, which allowed MySQL to be sold for 1 billion USD.
BSL software, (time limited Free Software/Open Source) can also be an Open Source revenue model, where one pays for the latest version and old versions are Open Source.
There are a lot of other ways to make money with open source. You should be able to find some of my talks about this on YouTube.
Regards,
Michael Widenius
Creator of MySQL and MariaDB
Going up against the big clouds, on their own platforms with something as "basic" as MySQL or Postgres based services is very likely to fail. Maybe they can get some customers here and there, but end of the day they don't have control over the costs of the underlying platform or capabilities, so are at a severe disadvantage.
Been using MariaDB at the orgs I've been at for several years now(everything is "on prem"), switched from Percona after they increased their support fees something like 800-1200% overnight (and we rarely filed support tickets). Not the DBA, I didn't drive the transition but it seems to work fine, not many issues, though not signed up to any formal support.
Large percentage increase from a small denominator is nothing remarkable. Let's see what happens in another year.
They had to write this front-end tool for MariaDB anyway. The decision to make it work with other databases is an interesting one and probably gives them a unique position in the marketplace. I hope they succeed, because this type of thinking needs to be rewarded.
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