Posted in MySQL, work on April 20th, 2009 by feef
Sun.com press release: Oracle to buy Sun
The Register: Oracle reels in Sun Microsystems with $7.4bn buy
NYTimes: Oracle Agrees to Acquire Sun Microsystems
Today, Oracle and Sun have announced that they have entered into an agreement such that Oracle now owns Sun in a deal that’s worth approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.
So what impact will this have on Sun’s Java and MySQL products? Currently, Oracle are planning on keeping MySQL within it’s RDBMS offerings [ http://www.oracle.com/sun/sun-faq.pdf ], but one can’t help wondering about the longer term view.
Oracle has a long history of not being very “opensource”, but I don’t think this will mean the end of the road for neither MySQL nor Java. Oracle aren’t so short sighted as to kill off the world’s most used database in one fell swoop, especially one that’s not (yet) in direct competition to Oracle for the enterprise market it has made it’s home.
It will, however, certainly be intersting times for MySQL from both an operational and developmental perspective, already having dealt with one such acquisition when they were sold to Sun last year, and subsequently lost some of their key staff.
We need to remember, MySQL is opensource, and as such, cannot be “killed”. Even if Oracle did decide to cease development of the lightweight, powerful and fast RDBMS that MySQL has become, they cannot stop the community that’s supported MySQL for so long from continuing development with the existing source, and indeed, with so many key MySQL figures now independant of Sun and MySQL, it could be argued that the potential is there for a 2nd generation MySQL to spin off within the opensource community from those who dislike Oracle and “big business”. Perhaps the biggest risk from Oracle is not that they stop or kill off MySQL, but perhaps lessen the priority of enterprise features to lessen competition with their own system, as MySQL’s popularity grows. Again, however, as MySQL is opensource, it would be nigh on impossible to completely prevent the development of such features.
If the worst happens, and Oracle kills MySQL, certainly, development and, to some extent support, would falter; but it certainly wouldn’t cease. Indeed, it might give Drizzle the opportunity to further develop their offering, but being aimed at a slightly different market, and it’s slimmed down features, I don’t see it being a direct replacement for MySQL.
Still, with my livliehood riding on my experience of MySQL, the coming months will be interesting times and I’ll be watching developments closely.
