Comments on: MySQL Support or Support for MySQL ? MySQL Trademark Policies

By: Pythian Group Blog » Blog Archive » Log Buffer #69: a Carnival of the Vanities for DBAs

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:22:06 +0000

[...] Blog reports that they were contacted by the MySQL company because of their having on offer, “MySQL support”. “What is the difference between ‘MySQL Support’ and ‘Support for [...]

By: peter

peter — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:25:50 +0000

Thanks Emin,

Wow, such a coincidence – when I write this post mysqlfront.de was saying project is dead and now I see it is pointing to sql-front web site.

By: Emin

Emin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:19:23 +0000

btw, mysqlfront is back
http://www.sql-front.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=13788

By: Sheeri Kritzer » Blog Archive » What’s in a Name? Everything! - The MySQL She-BA

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 19:06:11 +0000

[...] Peter makes an interesting post about the MySQL company’s trademarks at http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2007/10/26/mysql-support-or-support-for-mysql-mysql-trademark-po... [...]

By: Cesar

Cesar — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 17:10:44 +0000

Hey Thats a good name for my next project

By: peter

peter — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 10:16:11 +0000

Yes that is good choice. Also abbreviations are helpful because you always can change how it is translated without renaming product.

By: dormando

dormando — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 09:11:18 +0000

Mmm This is why my proxy’s called “DPM” (Dormando’s Proxy for MySQL).

Which has been my default naming scheme for software projects.

By: peter

peter — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 08:44:08 +0000

Poonie,

I’m not speaking about domain name – I’m speaking about product name and service name. The company which sells our services is called Percona.

Now trademark is not quite about competition – check this out
http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/trademark.html

“MySQL Toolkit” for example may leave some third party assuming this is official tool from MySQL, especially if they got it as part of distribution rather downloading from the site. Which may have MySQL blamed for problems it may have etc.

Again my point is not to complain about MySQL is doing something wrong. MySQL should have asked me to do so and as you can see I’ve fixed it.

The point is simply – you should be careful when you naming your MySQL related product or services. Not all Open Source developers may care about trademarks and they should.

Indeed as MySQL Toolkit and other tools mentioned do not compete with MySQL offerings – their authors can try to request MySQL permission to use their trade mark, and well may get it as original author of MySQL Front had.

By: peter

peter — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 08:34:02 +0000

Cesar,

Right, however do not mix “code base” with product name. For example MySQL is free to sell MySQL product to someone, which would stop releasing new versions under GPL. You can however take the latest GPL version fork it and continue development calling CesarSQL.

The fact original developer decided to continue the project has nothing to do with the fact company he has sold it to decided to stop the project because TradeMark issues with MySQL.

By: Poonie

Poonie — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 05:28:52 +0000

None of the products you mentioned as possible violators have \”MySQL\” in the web site domain.
None of them is in direct competition with MySQL services, as you seem to be.
It looks fair to me that they want to disambiguate.
MySQL toolkit for example is not in competition with anything MySQL AB is doing, and it is not selling anything.