MySQL to Counter Oracle's Purchase of InnoDB

Miff writes "Computerworld is reporting that MySQL is hoping to counter Oracle's acquisition of InnoDB by providing its customers with an alternative." From the article: "Axmark said the storage engine is 'pluggable,' meaning other storage engines can be substituted instead. He said the code for InnoDB is under the GPL (General Public License), so 'the code is always out there. It will always be out there.'"

Comments

The real problem

[einhverfr]

MySQL does not provide a transaction-safe store free of licensing overhead. Commercial licensing of BDB, SAP-DB, and InnoDB all require relicensing agreements.

These being availble for use under the GPL and similar licenses helps out everyone who uses MySQL under the GPL. But it doesn't help anyone else out, including MySQL. What MySQL needs is the ability to add something like MVCC to a table type that they own. Oh wait that will never work because MyISAM should be pretty much at odds with the whole concept. I guess it is time to build one from scratch.

So the inevitable outcome is that MySQL will probably have to write a storage engine from scratch that meets all the needs that InnoDB filled.

Re:Silly

[Master of Transhuman]

An empty string is a value; a NULL is the absence of a value.

In fact, in relational theory, according to Chris Date (although Codd himself supported the concept to some degree), NULLs shouldn't exist. This is because a table expresses facts - logical expressions - about an entity or a relationship, and a NULL is not a fact, it is the absence of a fact. An entity or relation about which you do not know the relevant facts should not be in a table which expresses facts about that entity or relation.

NULLS also lead to screwed-up SELECT results sometimes and worse, sometimes you can't detect that the results are screwed up.

This usually produces a religious war discussion, and I don't know enough to argue the case either way, so I won't say anything more about it. I'll just say that with Codd dead, Chris Date is the main man when it comes to relational theory, as far as I can tell, and he makes a good argument against NULLS.

Pick up his book "Database in Depth" published by O'Reilly, which is not really a book for newbies, but does have some fairly clear explanations of the issues. It's smaller and cheaper (by about three-plus times - $30 vs $105) than his college textbook on the subject.

Re:Which Database?

[dkf]

postgresql->oracle is the best combo in the book. Every project my company has touched in the last 7 years started with postgresql and if we ran into one of the limitations in postgresql, switching to oracle was painless.

I'd agree with that, and point out that SQLite is there for people who come in at the small end of PostgreSQL. I'm told (by the SQLite author no less) that upgrading to postgresql is easy when you want to take that step. And it is public domain.

Between them, sqlite->postgresql->oracle offer a full database solution for everything from "I want a better config file for my personal scripts" to "I have to run a mission-critical database for a Fortune 500 corporation", and you can't say much fairer than that.

Re:Patent Threat

[joto]

If InnoDB contains patented technology that Oracle now owns as a result of their acquisition of InnoDB, isn't that a moot point since InnoDB already released that stuff under the GPL?

No. Repeat after me: "patents have nothing to do with copyright!". Write it on the chalkboard 100 times...

There could be patents covering the GPL-licensed code, which InnoDB might not have enforced. Of course, thinking in this way is almost paranoid, but it has happened before, remember GIF?

No matter how GPL'd the code is, if it violates patents, it is illegal to distribute in countries where that patent is valid. If you doubt me, the text of the GPL license itself spells this out for you. And even if you already have a copy, unless it comes with a patent license, it's illegal to run as well.