Oracle Bid to Acquire MySQL

i_frame writes "CNet is reporting on a recent Oracle bid for open-source database MySQL. They were unsuccessful." From the article: "'It all comes back to the question of cannibalizing an existing business,' O'Grady said. 'If you determine that to some extent it's inevitable, wouldn't you prefer that you do it, instead of your competitors?' O'Grady said Oracle could benefit from MySQL in the way that IBM has from its acquisition of Gluecode, a company that commercializes the open-source Geronimo Java application server software and competed with IBM's own proprietary WebSphere product."

Comments

PostgreSQL seems to be immune...

[tcopeland]

...from these things since no one entity owns it. I'm running a Jabber server with PostgreSQL as the data store and it's been quite solid... good times.

Re:MicroracleSoft

[gnuLNX]

"If Oracle wanted to be really nasty, they could start legally enforcing MySQL's interpretation of the GPL. i.e. If your software uses MySQL but isn't GPLed, Oracle could sue you for failing to keep up the licensing terms."

This is totaly FUD.

The GPL does not enforce "external" programs to fall under the GPL. It is perfectly legal for non GPL code to "USE" GPL code as longs as it does not link directly to the code or add any exsisting extensions to it.

If your software embeddeds a MySQL database then you have to purchase a commercial license. However, it is perfectly legal for anyone to use a mysql database without releasing any code under the GPL.

Re:MicroracleSoft

[AKAImBatman]

Why? You could take a public defender and beat Oracle every single time.

Public Defenders are for criminal cases. AFAIK, the court will not appoint one for a civil disagreement. There is also the massive expense for a company to find and prepare evidence for their defense. Since the GPL is hinged on very technical matters, Oracle could easy keep the case in the court for a LONG time and bleed a company dry trying to defend themselves. Worse yet, a judge may actually agree with Oracle due to difficulty in understanding the technical issues at hand. Which means that the case would be held up even more by appeals.

Re:MySQL is not a danger; PostgreSQL may be

[QuietLagoon]

MySQL is fine for doing websites, or bulletin boards, or dinky little apps. The markets for Oracle and MySQL, though, basically don't overlap at all.

http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/

PokerRoom.com Powers High Transaction Online Poker System with MySQL and HP .... 12,000 players occupy the poker tables. Since each bet, each played hand and other data are recorded, the database often handles 2,000 transactions per second.

Los Alamos National Labs Relies on MySQL to Scale with 7 Terabytes of Data.

Lycos Europe Reduces TCO by 90% by Migrating to MySQL.

Lycos Europe migrated all company portal services to MySQL, displacing one of the leading proprietary databases in the market. Replacing their existing database solution with MySQL resulted in more than a 90% savings. Lycos Europe today has approximately 1 terabyte of data handled by 100 MySQL servers. At peak traffic up to 25,000 concurrent users are online and 1 Gb of data per second is delivered to users.

Cox Communications Powers Massive Data Warehouse with MySQL To maintain optimum performance and customer-service levels, Cox has developed a huge data warehousing application. At the heart of this business-critical system is a 2-billion row MySQL database.

etc.....