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Oracle Acquires Innobase
A short time ago, Oracle announced its acquisition of Innobase, the Finnish company that makes the GPL'd InnoDB table storage engine. Among MySQL users, the separately-written InnoDB is almost as popular as the native MyISAM engine, and is considered to be more advanced for most purposes. Slashdot has, except for search, run entirely on InnoDB for the past year or two so we're as concerned about this as anybody. Brian Aker, former Slashdot coder and current Director of Architecture for MySQL AB, comments: "InnoDB is GPL, so once again the beauty of the open source market is at play: there is no lock in, and we can continue to develop Innodb as we see fit. The code is out there and we plan on continuing to support it. The largest database vendor in the world just confirmed that the market for open source databases exists."
Slashdot has, except for search, run entirely on InnoDB for the past year or two so we're as concerned about this as anybody.
Why? InnoDB is GPL'ed.
The code is GPLed so what exactly is your concern ?
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
I guess the consern would be that InnoDB isn't going to get as much support as it should be. But as the original story puts it, the MySQL team intends to continue support with InnoDB. As a heavy MySQL user I can see where the worry would come from but I'm not worried because I believe the MySQL team will hold true to their word.
I think this is excellent, and will only lead to an expansion of InnoDB functionality. The speed over MyIsam coupled with the direct disk access is great, and was a huge factor in choosing MySQL over some others in recent software development. I have not ever heard of Oracle purchasing technology to squash it, either.
Click here or here.
All your Innobase are belong to us. Or them. One of the two.
(Ok, yeah, you can shoot me now.)
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I don't remember the exact details of the article from a few months back, but will this have any effect on MySQL's befriending SCO?
Time for /. to convert to PostgreSQL!
Of Course, InnoDB exists because MySQL's effort (MyISAM) is such a piece of shit.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I would think that it was the users of InnoDB that confirmed that the market for open source databases exist.
Also, what about IBM and their open-sourcing of Cloudscape? Don't they count?
If you post it, they will read.
Is this yet another sign that the DBMS vendors are going open source? This reaffirms our thinking of where open source is going. Great to see Oracle legitimise the open source database space as they did with Linux.
Marten Mickos, MySQL AB
Uh, no offense guys- but that's something I wouldn't put on my resume. Slashcode has seen near zero feature additions, is widely known to have some of the worst perl code ever written, is grossly underdocumented...
and current Director of Architecture for MySQL AB, comments: "InnoDB is GPL, so once again the beauty of the open source market is at play: there is no lock in, and we can continue to develop Innodb as we see fit.
You can, sure. But who has been putting the majority of development time into InnoDB? MySQL, or Innobase? If it's Innobase, and Oracle says to Innobase, "walk away from this", you're screwed. "Open Source" doesn't mean "if the primary supporter walks away, the project keeps going."
The largest database vendor in the world just confirmed that the market for open source databases exists."
Um...no, they didn't. They thought buying Innobase made business sense, so they did it. Inferring "OMG Oracle thinks we're cool!" is, well, quite the stretch. For all we know, Oracle could be handing out pinkslips as we speak, or folding Innobase talent into Oracle...who knows.
Please help metamoderate.
The MySQL business model works following way. They enforce the GPL and if you want to get out of the GPL you have to pay, just like qt, but MySQL has a problem there. Qt has its own codebase, MySQL does not, they rely on Berkley DB and on InnoDB, obviously there must be some relicensing contract between them so that people can relicense the InnoDB code non GPL, so what if Oracle refuses this relicensing in the future. MySQL might have a problem bigger than it seems on their hand. BDB is not the best repo (ask the SVN guys) and InnoDB is now in the hands of Oracle. Not that I would be sad to see MySQL going the way of the dodo, but this issue is bigger than it seems.
With MySQL AB's new relationship with SCO and now Oracle taking InnoDB proprietary, I expect we'll see many people reconsidering MySQL for PostgreSQL. Who's going to fork the last GPLed version of InnoDB? Certainly MySQL AB has demonstrated that it doesn't have that ability.
"InnoDB's contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate an extension of that relationship."
Hmmm... I think InnoDB will cost MySQL a little bit more next year.
Isn't Oracle afraid that it could catch the GPL bug? One wrong key and they will have to open their entire empire of code to everyone.
Oracle pulls this off..
Autodesk acquires Alias(maya)
Cingular buys out At&t wireless
NewsCorp purchases IGN
Yahoo purchases Konfabulator
IBM buys Gluecode
Verison acquires MCI
EA buys Digital Illusions
Google Acquires Keyhole Corp
Adobe buys Macromedia
GameStop buys EB
Yahoo buys Flickr
Yahoo buys MusicMatch
Warner Bros buys Monolith Productions
Mergers Left: 1. Sony buys Nintendo
2. Microsoft buys Yahoo
3. Google buys Sun
4. EA buys Hollywood
5. Walmart buys K-mart
6. Google buys Sony
7. Microsoft buys EA (very geographically convenient)
8. Walmart goes Bankrupt.
Google vs Microsoft vs RIAA Judge Judy presiding.
The biggest database vendor just confirmed that you can be too clever for your own good when you design your licensing schemes.
See the earlier article Oracle To Buy Siebel
Not only "land of the free" but "land of the lawyers" who love a good old 1st amendment smackdown. Shihar 153932
"Because continuing InnoDB development is critical to upcoming versions of MySQL, and development of a database engine requires more than simply GPL'd code. In the past, Heikki Tuuri's company Innobase has been eager to develop InnoDB specifically for MySQL's needs, because MySQL was in a sense the only "platform" it ran on. But that's not likely to be true in the near future, or at the very least, not necessarily true.
I do know there are at least several developers at MySQL AB who are intimately familiar with the InnoDB code, but I don't know if there are enough to fork the code and continue its development in the same vein as before. Frankly I will be surprised if this doesn't slow down 5.x development at least a little, while MySQL AB shuffles people around to get them up to speed." -- Jamie
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
Could this be one of the reasons behind recent comments regarding MySQL wanting to be the Ikea of databases and not wanting to compete with Oracle?
Actually, this could be a well thought move IF InnoDB is so important to MySQL. Indirectly, it may disrupt its development.
Not that Oracle would really need it; or would(?)... How much does MySQL threat Oracle's market share in the LONG run, especially with its new version coming around?
Again, Oracle opts for purchasing a pseudo-competitor instead of innovating on their own. I certainly don't think there is anything wrong with that, it just seems they are finally starting to realize they can't do everything for themselves. Although, database technology itself should be under their grasp already. It's Oracle-grown products like JDeveloper IDE and the OC4J application server that really don't (IMHO) meet the standards already set by OSS projects such as Eclipse and Tomcat. It would be nice to see them admit their shortcomings in those areas and either contribute to the OSS cause or purchase if they feel deem it necessary. Call me old fashioned, but I guess I just don't like to see big companies compete "just because" in spaces where they really aren't experts and are just looking to add 2 more sentences to their marketing material.
Of course, I write all this as I alt+tab away from my Jdev/OC4J/BC4J environment that's been forced upon me, so at least I'm not bitter about it!
Now we see the reason for all the endless pro-MySQL articles on Slashdot. They've been using it since the site's inception, despite superior alternatives like PostgreSQL.
If MySQL hooking up with SCO wasn't enough to steer people away, this probably won't either.
"Sufferin' succotash."
No, you will likely be moderated down because you are extremely wrong. For those too lazy to click, IBM is #1 with 34% marketshare, Oracle is second at about 33% and Microsoft is a distant third at 20%.
Sleepycat has more installations than all the rest of them put together, probably by at least an order of magnitude. I mean, as long as we're throwing about useless metrics...
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
We all know that Linux adoption is benefitting to some extent from Oracle's push in that space.
I'd say a brilliant move on Oracle's part, and something that might just benefit the MySQL/InnoDB combo as well.
Ummm.....cites? According to this, IBM is the market leader with 36%, Oracle follows closely with 32.6%, while MS isn't even close with 18.7%. Or is this "ships more units" as in "ships it with every copy of Windows Server", whether it gets used or not?
Just junk food for thought...
Terabyte SQL Server Database
Terabyte DB2 Database
Everybody sing!
One of these things is not like the others!
One of these things just doesn't belong!
One of these things is not like the others!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
A Troll???? Nooo! It should be a standard template in the comment box. hey, is it open source? Can I use it? Thanks, it was great, shoulda been modded funny, at least.
This could be a way of Oracle gaining "street cred" with the OSS crowd. Oracle sees that OSS is gaining in popularity...PostgreSQL and MySQL end up being the backends for most OSS apps that require a database...which leaves Oracle out of the picture...
Oracle may be thinking of releasing an OSS version of their database server. What better way to start off than by buying the developer of one of the most popular database formats for OSS.
Their "new" business model would probably be similar to MySQL and they may even sell a new version of InnoDB to MySQL every now and then (an older version of course)...
In their eyes, this would be a good way of Oracle being written into OSS apps...Write a new version of Oracle database that is identical to the commercial version in every way except that you are using InnoDB as the backend...
This happened a while back when Ford bought Jaguar. At the time Dodge was working on the Viper and word was that it would be a "Mustang killer". Ford was scared to death that one of their most popular automobiles would be outsold by the Viper. There was very little known about the vehicle at the time, but what was known was that it was going to be a big engine...bigger than a V-8... Ford knew that the only company with a V-12 was Jaguar and figured that this was the most likely powerplant to be used in the vehicle (or some variation). They decided that if Dodge was going to make a killing with the Viper then they might as well get in on the action by licensing the engine design for every Viper produced...So, Ford bought Jaguar...of course, Dodge went with their own V-10 design...some say this was always then intent, others say the original design called for a V-12...
No, the GP was right. He stated that " Well, MS ships more units of SQL Server than..." and that's certainly true. Not terribly informative, of course, because it's like stating that "Ford ships more Explorers than GM, Daimler-Chrysler, Toyota, and Nissan combined." Sybase also ships more units of Adaptive Server Enterprise than all those other database vendors, yet they only have a 2.5% market share.
You've got to watch pesky market-speak. :-)
if you use the commercial version you are screwed. oracle just has to raise the fee on innobd or drop commercial version all together. then you have to eat it or rework their product with another db.
gpl users dont really care, like you said.
the difference is that you cant get a commercial version of the linux kernal. its only gpl.
Isn't Oracle afraid that it could catch the GPL bug? One wrong key and they will have to open their entire empire of code to everyone.
First of all, the bought InnoDB, so they can do with it whatever they like; the GPL only applies to other people.
Second, if Oracle shipped binaries that include GPL licensed code, they may be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars of damages and they must remove the code, but putting their code under the GPL is neither necessary nor sufficient to resolve the situation after they have violated the GPL.
5. Walmart buys K-mart
:)
K-mart was already bought by Sears. Pay attention you ninny
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
not sure where you're getting that...
s /orcl_db_strength.pdf
According to IDC, it's Oracle...according to Gartner, it's IBM..but SQL Server is a distant 3rd.
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/investor_relation
Perhaps the KDE project should take this as a warning, too. They're also heavily dependent on a third-party piece of software: TrollTech's QT.
Suppose TrollTech were to be bought out tomorrow, and they stopped releasing their work as open source software. While QT is open source software and could thus be forked, would the KDE project be able to muster together the talent to continue developing it? Or would it stagnate, in turn harming the entire KDE project? Has the project looked into the possibility of that happening, and if so, what are their contingency plans?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Is there anyway to be sure? Nope.
While they cant remove existing work, they can kill any future development. AND they can absorb the developers into the corporation and cut off any short term outside projects with a 'non compete' agreement.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Could this be more subtle then we all realise? Maybe the big O is just turning the screws on SAP. Think about it. SAP is "in bed" with MySQL AB via the transfer of MaxDB. Now if SAP were thinking of pushing MySQL as the db of choice to seperate themselves from Oracle, what better way to scupper them - buy the transaction engine technology (of choice) in MySQL.
Remember SAP is the only competition left for Oracle in the Apps space.
But then again, maybe I'm just paranoid!
The danger here isn't that InnoDB would be close-sourced, or that it will languish.
:)
What Oracle can do is say "We love Free Software so much that we are ONLY releasing InnoDB under the GPL." That would destroy MySQL's commercial licensing plans, from which they derive most of their revenue. It means MySQL could no longer have "OEM Licensing" or any of the non-GPL'd schemes that bring in actual money. (Well, unless MySQL decouples itself from InnoDB, which means they'd be shipping an inferior product.)
I'm really glad I went with PostgreSQL.
Long ago (1994) Oracle acquired Rdb which came with VMS and people were alarmed thinking the sky was falling because Oracle would convert the customer base to its flagship database engine and let Rdb wither. Well it didn't exactly happen like that. What withered was VMS but Rdb is still maintained and improved by Oracle as a separate database product. http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/rdb/inde x.html/
Of course Oracle makes money on Rdb. Oracle's strategy is probably to make money with InnoDB too. They may be sneaky and improve InnoDB and keep quiet for a few years and then when people get dependent on it they will up the license fees.
How to make money on open source: Get people addicted with "free" open source software but charge them for key critical components, training, and support. Oracle is not alone here.
Hey man, I got some really good stuff for ya here and I'll give ya some for free just because I like you and I'm so nice. It's really good shit. Here, try some on me.
Just wait till Oracle buys us as well - we're gonna be rich!
And, btw, suppose they did - what then?
Mysql could replace its transactional foundation (innodb) with postgresql.
This would give it a transactional foundation that oracle couldn't buy out from under them!
Seriously, MySQL doesn't perceive itself as an Oracle competitor, but Oracle may very well perceive MySQL as a competitive threat. Employing the developers who write the back-end for the paying customers of MySQL is a nice way Oracle can influence their competitor.
My work has an application based on mysql that needs to add ACID compliance, and PostgreSQL just got a whole lot more attractive.
about sean dreilinger
The GPL addresses patents, right? If Oracle has a patent for which InnoDB has prior art, could they suppress the application of the prior art?
Just a thought.
> The code is GPLed so what exactly is your concern ?
Duh, this isn't like some bowling league score calculation program - this is 90% of the code that makes mysql worthwhile. You're not going to just pick up a transactional layer and start supporting it - unless you're a software engineer that specializes in this exact kind of problem. Which mysql must not have on staff, or they would have done it themselves.
So, here's a suggestion: maybe mysql could use postgresql as a transactional layer! ok, here are the great reasons why:
- it would stop all mysql vs postgresql flames since mysql would be using postgresql, and widening the postgesql marketshare at the same time they widened theirs
- postgresql can't be bought out from under mysql
- mysql won't have to hire the brains to build a database transaction manager
- it might help mysql become more ansi-sql compatible
- it might mute postgresql's recent popularity surge - since mysql will also ride that wave
- it can protect mysql against postgesql - since mysql can always be added to everything that postgresql does
- there could be a single really popular open-source database stack: mysql/postgresql, with little
divisiveness, splintering, etc. This might help increase mysql's momentum
- postgresql doesn't have innodb's bloated tables
tada!
I do know perl. I have implemented SlashCode.
:)
It is some of the worst perl I have ever seen, and that includes a half-assed shopping cart written by an ex-coworker of mine who was, quite literally, stoned at the time (his "lunch" hour was spent chasing the dragon, as it were).
Of course, that was slashcode 1.x. Haven't had the courage to look at 2.x.
Posting anon because I don't really feel the urge to get into a pissing contest with grumpy editors.
MySQL has pluggable back ends, and they make it easy to switch between them. If the Oracle folks make life with InnoDB too difficult, MySQL users can just convert their tables to be stored using Berkeley DB instead. No code changes, no loss of functionality, everything just keeps on going.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
This is the biological equivalent of outsourcing your nervous system. If foreign keys and transaction management are not built into your database (that you're selling) , and you've outsourced them, then you honestly deserve everything you get. How could they have been so stupid. mySQL is now in strategic grip of Oracle. Nobody wants mySQL without innoDB any more than you would want yourself without a nervous system. mySQL is nothing but a wrapper around innoDB as far as most people are concerned. The WHOLE point of an RDBMS is the MS part of the acronym. Management System.
And another thing SQL is pronounced "sequel" not "es - q -el". That should have been the first warning sign that these guys were a bunch of DB imposters. Why or how mySQL has become as popular as it has it totally beyond me, and indeed beyond most database professionals. It doesn't even support bind variables. Mod down the messenger if you want.
But the house of cards is about to get some wind blown at it. It took a lot longer than most DB professionals thought it would, but it was never NOT going to happen.
It raises the bar more than just a little..
Not just anyone can fix Innodb bugs or add features to it. And not just anyone can identify the ones who can from the ones who just say they can.
Plus the people who can may be too expensive for a single user to afford. Sure it may be very important to the users, but if they just can't afford it does that mean they miscalculated and should have used some other _cheaper_in_the_long_run_ DB?
The costs of 1000 users each looking for different subcontractors to fix bugs is far more than 1000 users getting fixes from the primary company.
Even if the 1000 users have the same problem, it is harder for them to share the various solutions to the same problem they fixed using different subcontractors. Also if the users lack the expertise, they will have little idea which is the best solution.
If MySQL AB has significant InnoDB expertise then it won't be so bad. MySQL AB can then be the creator, manager and distributor of the bug fixes and features.
Maybe the InnoDB team would refuse to close source their stuff, even if Oracle tells them to. In which case Oracle gets Innobase but not the team, who might leave and work for MySQL or someone else...
It'll be interesting to see what the core people do.
Nice troll fuckwad.
Interesting to see MySQL architects leaning on the GPL to comfort users given their partnership with SCO who seems to care so little about the license and arguably seeks to defeat it. I feel like one hand doesn't know what the other is doing. Too bad also that they were never able to create a transactional table type on their own rather than allowing someone else to do it for them, they wouldn't be in this position.
One possible reason for this is that Oracle wants MySql to grow faster than PostgreSQL. This is because Postgre's SQL dialect is closer to Oracle's than My. Thus, if they can popularize scalable MySQL at the expense of Postgre, then Postgre will not raise up to take customers away who might otherise think of porting their big-iron Oracle queries to big-iron Postgre. Keeping Postgre small or immature will keep it out of their market area.
Table-ized A.I.
while we're speculating (hey, this is
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Let's see, I may rather use MySQL and a huge expertice-enanbling iBuzz-oriented java middleware, or Oracle (who does the thing) and a simple perl script to do selects and updates.
While the #2 approach is perhaps still better, the #1 drains some demand from Real DBMS market. Less demand, competing gets harder.
Moreover, as time passes MySQL improves and workarounds/middleware solutions are accumulated, thus undermining Real DBMS market even more.
It's like windows in the server room: once it appeared, it didn't fit the job most of the time. But it was cheaper! And now, the MS server OSes have improved, the solutions are everywhere and windows admins are easy to find.
So, basically the el cheapo solution, while not being the choise for Real Men, quickly makes them a minority. Thus making the market conditions worse for them.
My point is: while MySQL is of no direct competition to Oracle, it still harms their business and should be considered a competitor.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Fact: Oracle is gobbling up both development tool and packaged application middle-tier products and plans to "fuse" them into their middleware platform now called "Oracle Fusion" using a Web Services platform.
/competing/ products. They'd lose the very customer base they purchased if they did otherwise. Here is where Oracle plans to win - by embracing open (and Open Source) /standards/, they clobber the Microsoft beast in the enterprise market.
/you/ think?
Fact: Oracle Application Server is really a best-of-breed solution that leverages Apache, PHP, Perl, Orion J2EE Server and acquired reverse proxy caching technology. Oracle has in effect morphed into a company with an "acquire and merge best-of-breed" mentality.
Fact: Larry Ellison knows that, with the purchases of TimesTen, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft and Siebel, that there are not really any more fish to catch, pragmatically speaking (MS doesn't count - really). Oracle's goal for the next 10 years is to build these discrete products into a massive quasi-open platform that even interoperates with
So why buy InnoDB? I think (a) Oracle genuinely understands it needs to play fair, especially in the Open Source space, so better that it acquire InnoDB than Microsoft; (b) Oracle needs (ok, wants) the InnoDB talent to figure out how best to interoperate its own products with other MySQL-friendly products (and corollary to [a], it might have been easier to simply buy InnoDB than to "partner" with them), and (c) as they are doing with TimesTen, by integrating InnoDB into their product line, they create a convenient migratory path to the Oracle RDBMS for companies that outgrow MySQL (and, yes, you *can* outgrow MySQL - if you don't understand this, then you don't understand the nature of enterprise computing). Finally, (d) I'm pretty sure Oracle's future direction depends pretty heavily on data caching at many levels in the computing infrastructure - heck, Oracle App Server caches requests/responses for HTTP, stored procedures and portal "portlets", and TimesTen is being positioned as a database-level cache for distributed networks, so why not add InnoDB to that pot as well?
MySQL recently said they were happy to have Oracle at the top end, and that they were quite happy at the low-to-mid end. Somehow, I believe Oracle bought InnoDB so they have a vested interest in the low-end, where there's noplace for a customer to go but up.
Oracle has a vested interest in GPL - it helps them make money. I don't think the acquisition of InnoDB reveals anything incongruous. Heck, Zend just moved from Israel to a place down the street from Oracle, and Oracle just established a significant relationship with Zend to enhance Oracle interoperability with Zend's "PHP performance cache", but I really don't see PHP ever being 0wn3d by Oracle.
What do
Makin' money, makin' friends, makin' whoopee and wearin' Depends
The majority of MySQL AB's revenue comes from commercial licensing. Companies can only use the GPL licensed MySQL if their code is also using the GPL. Most commercial companies can't use the GPL version of MySQL for this reason. Currently MySQL will sell you a commercial license allowing you to use InnoDB without the GPL but that is only because they have a contract with Innobase until next year for the commercial rights to redistribute Innodb. Now that Oracle owns Innobase this puts mysql in a really tough position. The only way they can continue to sell commercial licenses of mysql (with InnoDB) is to negotiate a contract with Oracle. It seems to me that Oracle really holds all the cards in this deal. They could ask MySQL to pay huge sums of money for redistribution rights. If they can't come to an agreement Oracle won't really care. They just made mysql no longer commercially viable for most companies. MySQL made the comment that since the code is GPL that they can just go forward using the existing InnoDB code. Sure that's true but the only customers who can use this code are those willing to abide by he GPL and most large companies currently invested in supporting MySQL with their applications aren't able to do this.
Time will tell what Oracle intends to do with this new acquisition but It puts them in a perfect strategic position. They can re-negotiate a contract with MySQL where they stand to make a lot of money. This might also push up the cost of commercial licenses of mysql so they are no longer as competitive. They can refuse to give mysql commercial redistribution rights thereby dealing mysql a huge blow to their business. At this point who knows what they really intend to do, Oracle probably doesn't even know yet but they also realize this palces them into a great strategic position for the future.
MySQL also has a large number of talented employees so it's possible they could develop their own transactional storage engine but the difficulty of doing this can't be underestimated. If they decided to go that route it could be years before they had a viable alternative to InnoDB. Even if they did this it wouldn't surprise me to see Oracle sue them for patent infringement, as Oracle's next task is probably to patent as many parts of the InnoDB code as possible.
In his blog Oracle OS evangelist Omar Tazi raves about all the things that Innobase can do and MySql can't. Then he says: It'll be interesting to see how this affects MySQL. Stay tuned! Doesn't sound like a friendly takeover...
I've never used or even installed InnoDB Hot Backup to back up the few hundred gigabytes we have at Wikipedia. What we do is take one of the database slaves out of producton service and then either use mysqldump or shut down its server and copy the database files. It's effective, without adding the unnecessary cost of InnoDB Hot Backup. This approach also avoids adding undesired disk load to a server people are using.
Oracle is 'big biz' and has had a rough time with Microsoft for MSSQL's separation form Sybase back, oh it seems like another life ago (4.2 I believe it was), placed Microsoft firmly in the small to mid biz. The acquision now lets them tag the 'Oracle' name on the 'open sourced' project(s) associated.
In the process they can also add some coding influence, 'open source' SQL's respond to more Oracle SQL elements.
Consider this, when Google demonstrated their functionality in distributed processing potential the people at Sun and Oracle both cried. Both expected to battle MS and never expected this kind of assault. In Essene why buy Sun or Oracle when one can assemble throwaway boxes at a fraction of the cost with just a few conceptual adjustments?
Remember Microsoft is releasing it's new database and it's worthy for those who are actually interested in business backends that have a distributed flare. Oracle very much needs to get a 'Oracle Anywhere' type product but I suspect it will be about the viability of Sybase's Anywhere...
mysql could use firebird as storage/transactional/relational ;) if oracle will cut InnoDB (who knows what will happen with it)
engine in future
don't know about licences fit (mpl vs gpl)
and with it they could get oracle mode too (for free)
http://www.janus-software.com/fb_fyracle.html
developer http://flamerobin.org
Oracle Announces the Acquisition of Open Source Software Company, Innobase - Oracle Plans to Increase Support for Open Source Software
October 7, 2005, Oracle Corporation announced the acquisition of Finland-based Innobase OY. Innobase is the developer of discrete transactional database technology, InnoDB, that is distributed under an open source license. "Oracle has long been a supporter of open source software such as Linux and Apache," said Charles Rozwat, Oracle's Executive Vice President in charge of Database and Middleware Technology. "Innobase is an innovative small company that develops open source database technology. Oracle intends to continue developing the InnoDB technology and expand our commitment to open source software. Oracle has already developed and contributed an open source clustered file system to Linux. We expect to make additional contributions in the future."
InnoDB is not a standalone database product: it is distributed as a part of the MySQL database. InnoDB's contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate an extension of that relationship. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Few months ago I switched most of my own programs to use PostgreSQL instead of MySQL. The process was relatively simple. Most of my problems came from the use of MySQL's non-standard SQL-extensions. (It should be noted that PostgreSQL also has many extensions to the standard.)
:-)
:-)
I use SQL mainly from Perl and Python scripts and I was very happy to notice that not very many lines of code needed tuning. Almost all my problems in this area were related to the fact that PostgreSQL has very different way of automatically incrementing the primary key. But luckily the PostgreSQL's documentation was excellent and there they explained very carefully how their system works. I needed about one line more code to handle the difference
So my opinion is that it is not very difficult to switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL. If you have the will you'll succeed
Riiiight. Oh, and did you get that memo on the TPS header reports?