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Open source software is meaningless in this studie as the author dont know the difference between Open Source and Free Software.

Also the buying of license does not detail who is buying the license. Most of the time its the GPL user/companies who whant to keep the company around and so buy a couple of license for support option.

There is also the resaller and third party support who will push the proprietary option because they make money on it as the GPL is usually given at no cost.

The point that is the most wrong is to say that proprietary license ( what he wrongly call commercial license ) are giving more freedom , when its the opposite , in keeping it proprietary you have to do your own support on it , you have to improve it and keep it relevant and you have to solely do R&D on it adding an immense cost and if industrial espionnage and thievery happen , your competitor will not have to share it back with you and will be hard to detect.

I know most of those companie are not pushing the GPL option enough and use it as a way to get free developper more then as a real business development.

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MYSQL is the perfect example of the powers of open source database.
"
MySQL had $20M in gross revenue for the last fiscal year and 100% growth for the past 3 years running. The company has grown from 60 to 220 people in the last two years. The company estimates it has 6 million installations worldwide with another 40,000 downloads each day.
"
Going by the current trend, mysql will turn out to be force to recon with, a la Firefox.
It is the success of Open source databases that have prompted Oracle to offer its database for FREE, though not open source as yet.

B/w why have they not mentioned postgresql ?
Postgresql is enterprise level sql server with feature, stability and speed rivalling Oracle/Sybase.

Edited 2006-02-28 13:32

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Well reasearched and very interesting study on open source database companies and products.

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The author summarises the license for BDB in the way that Sleepycat like to promote:

>Your application must be internal to your site, or
>your application must be freely redistributable in >source form, or you must get a license from us."

But when I read the license, http://www.sleepycat.com/company/oslicense.html, it occurred to me that actually you can sell an application that is provided in source code, which uses BDB *once combined with it*, but where your own source code is NOT freely redistributable.

I think this is so because doing so does not distribute any of BDB, and program source may reference a BDB function (perhaps in an ifdef block that's not normally selected) without using it, per se.

Has anyone investigated this?

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This was a good read. It indicates that the 'give the software away, sell the support' model of OSS is not profitable. This has also been my finding with other OSS companies that I've dealt with.

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It would seem to be common sense that a licensee would pay in order to protect a product which incorporated a licensors IP. Mr. Hudson quantifies the advantage gained by offering dual licenses, commercial and OS.

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Re your description of IBPhoenix:
"IBPhoenix employs 6 people, grossed $50k its first year, and has nearly doubled revenue each year since. "

This much is true.

"[Paul] Beach formed InterBase Software to commercialize the existing and mature code base that Borland had taken open source after several years of closed source development. "

Wrong. While the original InterBase Software company was formed *before* the open-sourcing of InterBase with a commercial objective, that objective had died before the source code was opened.

"Borland continues to sell InterBase as a closed source product. InterBase is a relatively small company but it is profitable, it has a solid international presence, and it is growing rapidly. "

Both true statements. As it happens.

"The InterBase / Firebird database project has a colorful history. The initial InterBase product was started in 1984 by Jim Starkey, a former database architect for DEC. IBPhoenix does business as InterBase Software Ltd. and was founded in 2000 by Paul Beach, its president and managing director.
"
Actually, it's the other way around. InterBase Software Ltd trades as IBPhoenix.

Now, the REAL fantasy begins....

"IBPhoenix licensing"

What "IBPhoenix licensing" would this be? IBPhoenix produces one software product: a commercial, closed source, plug-in replication subsystem for InterBase and Firebird, called IBReplicator. There is no software product called "IBPhoenix".

IBPhoenix is a support company for developers and sites using Firebird (the open source RDBMS that lives at firebird.sourceforge.net) and InterBase (owned currently, but not for much longer, by Borland).

"The InterBase database product was sold as a closed source product by three companies before Borland took it open source. When Borland subsequently cancelled the open source project,"

The only "open source InterBase project" was the long-abandoned, read-only source code tree that Borland put up at sourceforge.net in 2000 when they open-sourced the IB 6.0 beta. It was never accessible by anyone not appointed by Borland and was not developed beyond a few bug-fixes.

What *was* cancelled (before the open-sourcing happened) was a plan to spin off an independent company to develop the beta IB 6 into a product for commercial distribution as an open source product and to provide a support infrastructure.

" two of the three managers formed the existing InterBase software company to maintain the open source product."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The "existing InterBase software company", which trades as IBPhoenix, was and is a support provider and does not "maintain the open source product". Firebird is the only open source product and it is maintained by a thoroughly independent group of volunteers.

What IBPhoenix does do, at its own discretion and along with a number of other interested companies, is support the Firebird Foundation with sponsorship. It also puts resources at the disposal of the Firebird Project's development team at its own expense. The Firebird Foundation is a non-profit organisation incorporated in NSW, Australia, that raises funds to assist Firebird development through grants to developers. No company, including IBPhoenix, has anything tied up in the Foundation other than its membership obligations and its sponsorship commitments.

"The InterBase project is now named Firebird after the mythical phoenix that is re-born anew from the ashes of its funeral pyre."

Totally untrue, never was true. The InterBase project excluded community participation and died quickly. The Firebird Project was formed on the day that Borland open-sourced the IB 6 code. We got the code the same way anyone would have - by downloading it from Borland's closed tree. Firebird is completely independent of any company affiliation.

"But the new open source project is not without serious legal entanglements. "

Utter balderdash, spun straight from the writer's thumb. There are no legal entanglements whatsoever. And it is not a "new open source project". Firebird has been going now for more than five-and-a-half years, has had two full releases and is about to have its third release.

"IBPhoenix uses an open and unrestricted license for the InterBase product. "

IBPhoenix does not distribute any InterBase product and never has.

"The core InterBase source code is owned and licensed by Borland under the terms of its InterBase Public License (IPL). Borland's IPL license is similar to the GPL in that any code developed by a commercial interest must be made available to the public at no cost."

More uninformed rubbish. The original InterBase code was distributed under the IPL, which was a re-written Mozilla Public License 1.1, which is not even compatible with the Gnu Public License. It is not similar to GPL at all; however, like all open source licenses, it does require the *source code* to be made available to the public. The licensing does not even require the source code to be distributed "at no cost". "Free", in open source terms, does not mean "free beer", something that the writer seems unaware of.

"IBPhoenix complies with the IPL by making all of its source code open without any restriction."

Complete nonsense, since IBPhoenix has no control over the Firebird source code whatsoever. The Firebird source code is distributed from Sourceforge by the Firebird Project. Period.

What's more, if your writer knew anything about the subject, he would know that

a) Firebird source code that is based on the original IPL code (and there is still quite a lot of it) continues to be licensed under the IPL;

b) new Firebird source code modules (of which there are A LOT!) are licensed under the Initial Developer's Public License, which again is a Mozilla Public License derivative and

c) the Firebird Project does not (can not) accept any code that can not comply with the licence terms

"Because of this unique ownership situation IBPhoenix does not have the option of offering the InterBase database under a commercial license."

There is no "ownership situation", unique or otherwise.

"InterBase" - the product and the name - is owned by Borland. Under the terms of the IPL, only "Inprise Corporation" (a one-time trade name used by Borland) is allowed to offer "the InterBase database".

Furthermore, there is nothing in the licensing to *prevent* IBPhoenix (or any other company) from offering an RDBMS product based on either InterBase 6.0 or Firebird source code under a commercial license, even though IBPhoenix does not choose to do so.

"It can only sell support, contracting, documentation, and add-on products."

Complete rubbish! IBPhoenix (like any other company) can sell whatever it likes, including its own commercial open source distribution of a RDBMS product built from InterBase or Firebird source code, if it ever wanted to. In fact, IBPhoenix runs a user-pays CD subscription service whereby subscribers receive CDs on a regular basis that contain, amongst a lot of other stuff, the full sources and binaries of the latest Firebird production release and the current development version[s].

Helen Borrie
Co-founder, Firebird Project
Admin member, Firebird Project
Staff member, IBPhoenix
Secretary, Firebird Foundation Inc.

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Helen brings up some good semantic points here. When I interviewed Paul Beach, managing director of IBPhoenix, he agreed that the Firebird/Interbase database had a long, fascinating and confusing history. I don't think I have clarified that history. I should mention that Mr. Beach was provided with a copy of this paper before publication and did not take issue with the facts then. Ann Harrison, an administrator of the Firebird project, founding partner of IBPhoenix, and wife of Jim Starkey, was also interviewed for this paper and provided some of the history.

Here is an interview with Ann which clarifies some of Helen's historical points: http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article3097.html

I do stand by my characterizations of the licensing. I contend that Borland's IPL license, linked to here:
http://www.borland.com/devsupport/interbase/opensource/IPL.html , is in fact similar to the GPL license in that it is a "dual use" license and not a free license like the BSD license which provides no commercial restriction. A dual use license allows the owner to commercially restrict the use of the source code and the database. This is in fact why IBPhoenix cannot license the Firebird product to commercial customers like MySQL does. Furthermore, any code changes that are made to the Interbase database in the Firebird database must be made public under the IPL license terms, as stated here in the license:

"3.1. Application of License.

The Modifications which You create or to which You contribute are governed by the terms of this License, including without limitation Section 2.2. The Source Code version of Covered Code may be distributed only under the terms of this License or a future version of this License released under Section 6.1, and You must include a copy of this License with every copy of the Source Code You distribute. You may not offer or impose any terms on any Source Code version that alters or restricts the applicable version of this License or the recipients' rights hereunder. However, You may include an additional document offering the additional rights described in Section 3.5.

3.2. Availability of Source Code.

Any Modification which You create or to which You contribute must be made available in Source Code form under the terms of this License…"

While Helen may dispute that IBPhoenix owns the Firebird source code, IBPhoenix certainly does have a financial interest in maintaining the code and acting as a steward. Technically speaking the code cannot be legally owned under the terms of the IPL. This is what I referred to when I say that "IBPhoenix uses an open and unrestricted license for the InterBase product". IBPhoenix is prevented by the IPL from restricting the code. In this way it is substantially the same as providing it under an unrestricted BSD license.

I consider this to be a very unique ownership situation, and from a business perspective this is what I refer to as a "serious legal entanglement". You have to admit that this is an unusual licensing arrangement with legal complications.

Furthermore, and contrary to what Helen states, because of Borland's IPL license, IBPhoenix cannot license the Firebird product for commercial use to end users. It can't sell the Firebird database as a licensed product and so it sells the documentation, training and support.

Getting back again to main business point, because IBPhoenix cannot license the database as a commercial product, it foregoes 2/3's the potential revenue that could otherwise be made. The fact that IBPhoenix does so well as a company without the extra revenue is a credit to its employees, to the outstanding nature of the database, and to the continued support provided by the worldwide Firebird community.

The intent of this research was not to find flaws in any of the database projects but to better understand the companies from a business perspective.

Andrew Hudson

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