jOhN C. DvOrAk
Whither MySQL, Whither LAMP?
T
he sale of Sun Microsystems to Oracle, along with the various GNU-GPL license changes going on in this world, brings up an interesting issue regarding the future of the LAMP platform. Will it live or die? LAMP refers to Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP—the core development platform for open-source development projects used on the Web. This includes dedicated Web sites, blogging software, content management, online retailing, and even search-engine back ends. Sun recently bought MySQL, which should be the first of the big four to fall by the wayside when Oracle gets hold of it. The guys who developed it in the first place have gone their separate ways with variations called “forks,” which will soon compete with each other for attention. And in the meantime, the licensing arrangements for many of these products are gravitating away from the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is so onerous
38 PC MAGAZINE DIGITAL EDITION JUNE 2009
that if you build a system around a GPL software bundle and want to sell the product, you will lose ownership of the code and it becomes public domain by rule. Until now, what everyone has done is distribute products with a requirement that hosts or buyers obtain the LAMP components on their own so as not to contaminate the application program with the onerous GPL. The situation is so bad with the GNU GPL that large law firms now have to be contracted so a company doesn’t “screw up” and accidentally touch some of the wrong open-source software and instantly lose its intellectual property rights. There are already a slew of lawsuits over this. Companies have even cropped up that develop what are termed “shims” to isolate one piece of code from another. This whole process is now officially ludicrous. The scene makes selling a commercial and completely integrated and optimized buy-and-run system impossible if any GNU GPL software is involved. And because you have no control over the bundle, you end up
