Tuesday, January 02, 2007

No More MySQL Binary?

If you look in the MySQL download page, then you will see that the latest version displayed is 5.0.27. It's kindda weird, since MySQL development usually never took so much time to release another version which fixed bugs from previous version. But when you look at the MySQL's FTP Site, , you will see that there's an update for MySQL. So, our first guess is that MySQL hasn't update their Download Page, but it's not logical, since MySQL has released 2 updates, 5.0.28 and 5.0.30 (can be seen in the FTP site), so they should have update their download page. As you can see, this applies both to binaries (which is expected with new policies) but also to the source files which were promised to be available.

Why does MySQL hides their binary and source code? Kaj Arnö’s blog mentioned about the new version of MySQL and how it works:
If our changes succeed in their objective, both audiences will benefit from a more stable, feature-rich and high-quality database. The open source benefits for each of the audiences mutually reinforce each other:

* Community users get new features at no-cost to them — funded by paying customers

* Enterprise users get a more stable, reliable and predictably-released product — thanks to community participation

Each of these components of the virtuous circle of open source contributes to the development and spreading of a better MySQL for everyone.

But in reality nowadays, the community never get their result. MySQL didn't publish their FTP site at their download page, and most users that needs to have binary version of newer product will have to build it from the original source code.

Is it time to migrate to PostgreSQL?

References:
MySQL Performance Blog
MySQL Digg
Kaj Arnö’s blog

6 comments:

  1. No, it's time to re-read Kaj's post -- Community users get more infrequent binary builds. Nothing hidden, nothing taken away. Just less frequent builds, like once every 6 months.

    If you want to compile from source, go ahead, there aren't any issues.

    This is ridiculous given that most folks who don't want to compile from source just use what their OS installs for them, which could be MySQL 3.23 for all they know.

    People are complaining and making a big deal out of something they don't even use -- for anyone complaining, when was the last time you upgraded MySQL to the latest version, using a binary compiled for you? When one came out, or when you had a problem?

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  2. But they didn't give any public information on the download page, which is very easy to do it, but they don't do it right?

    I'm still using MySQL 5.0.24a in Slackware and 5.0.27 in Windows. I use both precompiled binary of them from MySQL and from Slackware's maintainance, Patrick Volkerding

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  3. Anonymous2:16 AM

    Here is the URL for anyone searching for the source:

    ftp://ftp.mysql.com/pub/mysql/src/mysql-5.0.30.tar.

    I agree that it's not hard to find. However they try to hide it from the average user and make it appear as if there in no way to get the latest 5.0.30 fixes in the free community flavor.

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  4. Well, the FTP site URL has been written on the post actually :D

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  5. Anonymous6:20 AM

    Have a look in your original post and see if you can find that link ;)

    Only after I skimmed the html source I saw a link without a link text...

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  6. Well, i can find all the links from here

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