Re: MySQL to go public

On Feb 1, 2007, at 8:29 AM, Colin Brace wrote:

Where is the bubble?

The name - and I’m not kidding - to start with. MySQL sounds a lot
like MySpace. Investors will buy the stock for that alone.

But that aside, Carrol’s right about the internal combustion engine.
What’s the big deal about open source in this case? MySQL Enterprise
Platinum goes for $4,995 per server per year. Which may be a
reasonable price, I dunno. But it sure sounds like capitalist social
relations to me. Even the low-end price, $595, ain’t cheap.

On your complaint about snarky responses on FOSS. I’ve filed three
economic objections to its use as a model, none of them snarky: 1) It
typically presupposes high levels of expertise in users. Cf. Joanna’s
example of her daughter surfing the web within 10 minutes of her
taking it out of the box. 2) FOSS relies heavily on free riding on
the resources of employers (and parents, as has, nonjokingly, been
pointed out). People cannot pay the rent trading code, nor can they
pay for the computers and Internet connections necessary to develop
and distribute it. 3) Software is a highly unusual product -
infinitely reproducible and near-zero cost. It is the nonrival good
par excellence. How can the model be translated into the production
and exchange of peaches, health care, or transportation? People in
the computer world have a really exaggerated idea of the size of the
sector. It’s actually rather small.

Doug

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