Portions of MySQL May Go Closed Source (aka Company Offers “Paid Functionality”)
A while ago I stopped reading Slashdot because I generally find the information presented to be over-the-top and bordering on "zealot-like"... I suppose "overly dramatic" would work as well. However I was clicking through and ended up on the main page, which lead to reading the following headline: Sun to Begin Close Sourcing MySQL. It lead me to this article and I realized that the Slashdot headline was overzealous and so was Jeremy Cole.
Essentially, MySQL will be releasing some advanced features only to it's enterprise customers. I get this... It makes business sense. The age old adage is, after all, "Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free". I kinda feel that the FOSS community sometimes feels a sense of entitlement that they don't deserve. There plenty of FOSS users and supporters, but how many of them actually contribute back to FOSS. They do nothing, until they may lose some "advanced functionality"... then they scream as loud as anyone else.
Numerous people on Jeremy's website commented that MySQL was going to be giving "beta-like" software to their enterprise customers because they didn't have the community to test it. This puts way to much importance on the community. There are plenty of closed-source and paid software companies that ship software directly to enterprise customers without first running it by the FOSS community. This software does just fine.
In the end, this is a bunch of sour grapes over something that really isn't that big of a deal. Use another database or pay for the enterprise software.