Oracle buyout of Sun and it's affects on mySQL

[Lynn Fredricks]

> Has anyone heard about this proposed acquisition of Sun by 
> Oracle? I got an email from monty at helpmysql.org wanting me to 
> "sign" some petition to help keep mySQL open source. I'm not 
> sure if this guy is crying Wolf, or if this is a real issue. 
> Also, since On-rev uses mySQL, I want to ensure we are not 
> going to get pinged for future licensing, if I develop 
> solutions and host them on on-rev. 

I think he's worried about his baby.

Michael Widenius (aka Monty) certainly has his concerns about the Oracle
acquisition of Sun. Michael is the original developer of MySQL and worked on
the project for more than 27 years. It is worth reading his posts about the
importance of the GPL in MySQL licensing and even goes on to tie the fate of
MySQL to the free nature of the Internet. What I find facinating is that his
argument is that the open source project requires a strong corporate master
invested in making it competitive with closed source databases. For all the
arguments and worry about MySQL, I believe that the Sun acquisition was more
motivated by the fate of Java than MySQL. It is understandable why Sun was
seeking to sell itself.  Although much of the success of today's internet is
a result of resting on the highly stable Solaris OS and the development of
Java enabled an entirely new (and not always rock solid) way to deploy
server side and handheld applications, new technologies have come along to
kick out their revenue potential.  Oracle has heavily invested in Java as a
development environment, and the threat over the last two years of a
possible acquisition by rival IBM of Sun made the acquisition of Sun an
important step for Oracle. Oracle really does not need MySQL, but they
needed Java. Solaris is also a nice alternative to Linux, too.

I think Michael is going to have a lot of heartache in 2010. MySQL AB had an
extremely aggressive sales force and rather difficult to understand
licensing that, in combination, generated revenues for MySQL AB from
confused executives at development companies and end user companies who
became enamored with MySQL because it was free - but later found it wasn't
free for their commercial endeavors. Oracle certainly has an aggressive
sales force, but the mindset is different. The sort of bait and switch
mentality for licensing isn't a part of the Oracle way of doing things - and
I can see some of Michael's fears coming true. Prices will very likely go
up, up, up. The software license will probably not change for a while - at
least until the worries of government probes are behind them.

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
President
Paradigma Software
http://www.paradigmasoft.com

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