MySQL on Mac OS X: An Ideal Development Combination
They got one bit a bit unclear. They say “In fact, the development team at MySQL AB uses the Mac platform for developing the MySQL server software itself.” Which is misleading at best if not downright wrong.
Yes, some people do use MacOS X. But some also use Microsoft Windows, some FreeBSD and a lot use Linux (various flavours – mine’s Ubuntu). The way their sentence reads is that we only use the Mac platform. This, is wrong. They even quote Brian later on as saying that “A significant number of the developers inside MySQl AB use MacOS X as one of their development platforms.” So they can’t be ignorant of the fact that the Mac is just another platform.
They then go on to again, mislead at best. “the MySQL database was originally an open-source project, but is now owned by a commercial enterprise”. WHAT??? Oh, if you read the next sentence (and disregard this one) you find out you can get both commercial and free, open source licenses.
Apart from that, it reads like marketing. Good for us though, more exposure of MySQL to OSX people is a good thing.
Oh, and I am pointing this out to Apple too. I’m not some asshole who just whines on his blog :)
UPDATE: Brian mentions in the comments of this entry that Apple is taking the feedback seriously and have contacted him about my feedback. So, I’m quite impressed. In fact, kudos to Apple. Anybody who actually takes notice of comments submitted on their web site is doing pretty good. I also have the feeling that this entry perhaps came over a little strong…. so go back and interperet it as “hey, maybe people could read the article and get the wrong idea”.
Cool. Even if it’s misleading. Nice to know that Apple cares about us :)
I’ve not decided on how or even if it needs to be corrected. I didn’t take from their sentence that we only develop on a Mac, and in fact we do develop MySQL on Apple, compared to say a company where no one directly develops on a certain platform.
And Apple has already emailed me about your letter :)
It’s probably just the way I read things – I tend to be highly critical of the way things are written and the possible interpretations.
I really should have written my post more of a “it would be possible to interpret this N ways.”
I still think that with a few tweaks to the article it would mean that it would be impossible for anybody to get the wrong idea.