Oracle buys Sun. Sun owns MySQL. Oracle’s press release about it here.
Does this mean an end to MySQL? Are all companies using MySQL will now get really harsh sales pitches to use Oracle? I love Oracle and I love MySQL – the beauty of both is competition. “MySQL is better than Oracle because…” and “Oracle is better than MySQL because…” are what drives both to get better.
Good for Oracle and Sun, but I’m curious to see what happens.
Ben Ramsey
on Apr 20th, 2009
@ 6:11 pm:
I think these are valid concerns, but the real question isn’t about the MySQL database engine. It’s under the GPL and will live on in the community no matter what happens to the MySQL company (indeed, it’s already been forked with Drizzle).
So, the real question is: what will happen to the MySQL company? That’s what I’m curious about. :-)
LornaJane
on Apr 21st, 2009
@ 8:26 am:
Maggie, I can only agree. From where I’m standing, Oracle is a good thing, MySQL is a good thing, I can’t make those two add up to a conclusion that the universe is ending. What happens to MySQL and its talented employees from here is anyone’s guess, here’s hoping Oracle will understand what they have undertaken and capitalise on it in such a way that we all win!
adam hartung
on Apr 21st, 2009
@ 8:05 pm:
Sun had no hope of survival by the late 1990s when McNeely Locked-in on selling “boxes” and stopped listening to the marketplace. Sun created huge value with Solaris and Java, but had no idea how to capture that value so it just kept doing what it always did. Eventually, the market didn’t see the value in the boxes any more, and the value of Solaris and Java had been frittered away. A lesson for any company that it must adapt to market needs or it will be squashed. Read more at http://WWW.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com