Oracle Acquires Sleepycat

Deven writes "Computerworld is reporting that Oracle has just acquired Sleepycat Software (makers of the open-source Berkeley DB embedded database) for an undisclosed sum. Having previously acquired Innobase, Oracle is certainly taking a look at diversity."

Comments

Re:Its not competition - Oh yes it is

[Snowhare]

BDB is used as a backend engine in MySQL. It is one of the two best backends - the other being InnoDB. Oddly enough, Oracle bought InnoDB about 3 months ago.

Sense a pattern?

Re:Interesting ....

[jadavis]

How many of those engines are distributed under a free license and have transactional support? Looks like both are owned by Oracle now. Oracle did that for a reason, and it's not because they like to collect database companies.

Many users of MySQL depend on one or more of:
(1) the ability to license MySQL commercially with one of those engines cheaply
(2) the continued development of those storage engines
(3) the continued development of MySQL

Oracle can now stronly influence all of those things. #1 they can just raise the price or not license. #2 they can just lay off all the developers. Good luck getting an open sources devel team together before it's too late. #3, they can just refuse to license those backends, thereby preventing #1, which is also MySQL's source of revenue, leading indirectly to exactly the same case as #2.

Sleepycat responds

[Chairman]

I'm Mike Olson, Sleepycat's (now former!) CEO. I've taken a job as VP at Oracle working on embedded databases. Our entire team has come along.

I've posted a summary of this announcement on the Sleepycat blog, at http://blog.sleepycat.com/2006/02/next-ten-years.h tml. I understand that a big vendor making a series of acquisitions in open source causes concern, but I'm convinced that the plan is as outlined in my posting. We're all showing up for work every day and working on the same embeddable database technology as ever. We're continuing to close deals with new customers and to support old ones. We continue to work closely with open source users.

There's lots of speculation that this move is intended to damage MySQL. I frankly don't see it; MySQL doesn't depend on Berkeley DB. It never did. We've always had a close and cordial relationship with those guys, but both businesses have always concentrated on our own customers and markets. We may have wished, sometimes, that we collaborated more closely, but we never did.

We've been good members of the open source community for a long, long time. We're pleased our software is so broadly used, and we're proud of the projects that rely on it. While I understand the concern, here, I'd ask that you watch what we do. I'm confident in the future of our products and of open source. Give us time to show you what Oracle and Sleepycat can do together.

Re:Sleepycat responds

[hypersql]

I don't agree MySQL does not depend on Berkeley DB. Without it, and without InnoDB, MySQL needs an alternative. In any case it's bad for MySQL, because some customers are probably already scared.

I think what Oracle will do is change the work priorities inside Sleepycat. Development and support related to MySQL will be stopped completely. Developers will be re-assigned to do things like 'compatibility', 'migration' and so on. Future version of Sleepycat will just not work with MySQL any more. Probably the license agreement will change. Not sure if the code will be forked, but if the main developers of the codebase are gone (no longer working on it), the code becomes a legacy.

Something very similar happened to me in 2001. I am the original author of Hypersonic SQL (a Java database engine). PointBase, who also developed a Java SQL database, asked me if I want to work for them, I said yes. We agreed I will continue to work on Hypersonic SQL. But this suddenly changed about half a year later, and they made me to work on something else (PointBase Micro, PointBase UniSync). So they 'bought' me (well, I only got shares, which are now worthless). And then tried to kill the competitor. They told me to stop the Hypersonic SQL project. But it was forked (HSQLDB). I left PointBase in 2003, and now I'm working on a new Java database: H2 (http://www.h2database.com/).

MySQL will probably start developing their own transactional backend. They have now enough money to do that. They should do that, probably they already started (I was asked to work for them, but obviously I said no because of H2). My guess is MySQL will start a branch in the Bay Area, and hire some good developers there. There are quite a lot good database developers in this region.

Thomas Mueller, former author of Hypersonic SQL

Re:Taking a look at Diversity?

[Deven]

Diversity? It looks more like careening towards homogeneity to me.

I should point out that the Slashdot editor changed my words while leaving them attributed to me.

I said nothing about diversity. My original quote was "Having previously acquired Innobase, what does the future hold for these open-source databases?" The editor changed the end of the sentence to "Oracle is certainly taking a look at diversity." -- those weren't my words, despite remaining inside the quotes.

But hey, I got a submission accepted, and that's always nice! :-)