alt Hacker NewsThe GPLv2 doesn't prevent a company from distributing binaries and making the source available on request while development is done behind closed doors. This wouldn't really be "open source" as we typically understand it and might be cause to exclude it from some Linux distros, for example. I'm not saying that K1 would do this (I have no idea who they are or what they do), but I also think it's a reasonable risk to consider.
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I don't see how that would be a realistic risk? Any MariaDB user (including Lobste.rs) could request the source, and per the GPL it must be supplied, so this isn't an effective strategy for any entity to go closed-source.
And in any case, https://github.com/MariaDB/ links to mariadb.org which is run by the MariaDB Foundation, not the commercial enterprise owned by K1.
That was precisely how the original free software movement started, actually. Work was done behind closed doors and if you didn't like it, you released your own version with your changes.