Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
Why? InnoDB is GPL'ed.
But the minds behind it are not. If Oracle snaps up key talent behind innodb, it could mean a big slowdown for that aspect of MySQL.
Oracle isn't stupid. They didn't want the InnoDB buildings. They didn't even really want InnoDB itself - that's in the wild. They probably DID want the brains behind it, or the tech they were about to release.
Time for /. to convert to PostgreSQL!
Why? InnoDB is GPL'ed.
Just off the top of my head I'd say that they are worried about the possibility that future development and bug fixes will go to a closed source branch, that development might grind to a halt as the original developers are reassigned, that the nature of development might change and move in directions not beneficial to Slashdot as a user, or that something else will result from this change.
It is wise to be concerned when you technology provider undergoes a drastic change. The GPL helps, since the project will likely continue as a active, GPL project in any case, but losing most of the experienced developers could really slow things down. That is not to say that it will. In fact, development might speed up and get better. It is just understandable to be concerned.
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.
"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.
The biggest database vendor just confirmed that you can be too clever for your own good when you design your licensing schemes.
There is one key difference. Oracle isn't in direct competition with Linux.
There is a chance that Oracle has some plan for InnoDB that will help Oracle's bottom line without actually harming MySQL. But if I had to guess, I would guess that the strategy in some way involves Oracle helping Oracle by harming MySQL. Or rather by slowing MySQL's progress. Because I don't believe that this isn't something that MySQL can't deal with.
While that is a great flattery, I can't help but think that brave words such as "Great to see Oracle legitimise the open source database space as they did with Linux" feels just a little bit like putting up a brave face. Because it would almost certainly have been better for MySQL if Oracle hadn't bought InnoDB.
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
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?
Peoplesoft and J.D. Edwards don't count?
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!
Why would somebody use MySQL with PostgreSQL underneath when they could just use PostreSQL in the first place?