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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."
You know it's GPL right?
It's not like the open source MySQL is going to go away if they buy MySQL AB.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
What isn't mentioned is that this would probably ruin many small businesses who depend on open-source software because they can't afford large expensive distributions such as Oracle
Yeah, because no other similiar solutions exists. Right?
He did, however, say why he turned down Oracle's offer: the desire to keep his company's independence. "We will be part of a larger company, but it will be called MySQL," Mickos said.
Oracle didn't immediately comment on the acquisition offer.
Oracle has become bloated and greedy (not unlike another large software company I could mention) and as their product continues to be mired in expensive add-ons and upgrades that not many IT departments have use for, they are seeing MySQL as the herald of their doom. MySQL is a lean, mean RDBMS that is slowly becoming the darling of programmers (how many PHP/MySQL books are there?) and Oracle is dominating the large-scale market but can't seem to make in-roads in the smaller markets. On the one hand, they covet MySQL's success; on the other, they see MySQL as a competitor to be squashed.
Larry Ellison better watch his back - the open source community may decide to start truly gunning for him.
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Given that Oracle has already acquired the makers of two of MySQL's transactional engines, putting them in a real tough spot, I'm sure Mr. Ellison assumed this final offer to MySQL to be just a formality.
This kind of integrity is so rare these days. Whatever happens, we should all try our best to support MySQL in what may be a losing battle against an evil foe.
do you think so? I bet you could easily hire aware the developers of that project... If the key developers are gone, well development is halted... yes others can pick up where they left behind, and in 6months some development will start again by people that dont have the intimate knowledge of the system or the same set of skills. you could cripple most projects with that method
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
It's not like the open source MySQL is going to go away if they buy MySQL AB.
No, but it gives Oracle and excellent barganing position. They can effectively kill the upgrades to MySQL that would turn it into a real database. (Look Gepeto, I'm a real boy!) Then when customers come through looking to use MySQL, Oracle will try to upsell them to Oracle or one of their other properties. Even if the customer decides on MySQL, that's still revenue for Oracle.
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. Even if you are just using it for internal, non-distributable software (such as a web app), many companies would rather pay up a small licensing fee rather than tango with Oracle in court.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The RDBM provides a standard function in a standard way. It only makes sense that it would become commoditized, and in the software world commoditized = free. Sure oracle offers some pretty impressive features, but at some point the cost of implementing those features yourself or the cost of not using those features is exceeded by the cost of buying oracle.
Remember, MySQL has a closed-source business model trying to sell non-GPL'd versions of their source code - and oracle, now owning the original source Innodb and BerkleyDB can prevent them from doing that. MySQL can still use the GPL'd versions in their GPL'd products, but their closed source products go away, or at least they could. And Oracle isn't a company known for playing softball.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Except that PostgreSQL is pretty darn stable at this point. There's not much that's absolutely necessary to the future of the database. (Unlike MySQL which is in the process of getting their act together to make it a Real Database(TM).) The development that they're doing now is simply making PostgreSQL more and more of a competitor to Oracle for large, enterprise databases. If Oracle hired away the developers, they'd gain maybe six months to a year before someone needs to scratch an itch and pulls the project back on track.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
They could. But an application as important and popular as MySQL would simply fork. Simply look at X.org vs XFree86.
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Remember what Microsoft did to Foxpro?
Yeah, they bought the product and continue to this day to pay a team of programmers to develop it. Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9 Service Pack 1 was released just two months ago.
Uh, wait, I was supposed to say that they did something nasty, wasn't I? Sorry, but when a company has released four major versions of a product in 8 years, and is committed to supporting the current release through to 2015, it's really rather hard to say that they've evilly crushed the competition like a bug beneath their iron boots.
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. Apart from companies which already have a significant infrastructure built to support and maintain Oracle databases, nobody's gonna use Oracle for most of the applications that MySQL is typically used for. More complex business applications require more functionality than MySQL provides. Oracle provides an assload of features, even in the lowest end version of their product, that most people writing the average web app just won't need.
MySQL isn't a competetor for Oracle in the space where Oracle is usually deployed. IBM DB2, MSSQL Server - those are the competetors for Oracle. And probably PostgreSQL is too. It provides a lot of functionality that you'd want in those kinds of applications, and its free. It has the problem, however, of overcoming entrenched attitudes towards 1) anything that's free, and 2) anything that's unfamiliar. Me? I'd use PostgreSQL for those apps, but that's me. Often, there's vendor platoform requirements that'd make that impossible, or management level edicts that prescribe platoforms.
If anything, the purchase of MySQL was intended to soften the image of Oracle and make it appear to be more of a player in the low end. They have (rightly) a reputation for being expensive, and this was probably a ploy at changing that. It's not fear of MySQL's technical prowess.
Just because your software uses something that's GPL, doens't mean that you have to release all your source code. If you have an app which accesses an opensource database, or is hosted on an opensource web server, then you are not required to release your code. If you decide to release/create a database app or a webserver, and use the code from MySQL or Apache, then you are bound by the GPL. Simply using an open source project, even writing code that accesses an open source project, does not bind you to releasing your code under the GPL. If that were the case, all software coded on linux would have to be Open source.
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2. MySQL has further enforced this by GPLing all of the drivers, which you MUST link against in order to access MySQL.
3. Did I mention that Oracle could take them to court regardless of whether or not they're actually in violation? Did I also mention that most companies would pay up rather than go to court? Why yes, I do believe I mentioned that.
MySQL OSS License Page
The older version of that page was more to the point:
So in short, Oracle would have broad powers under which to enforce the GPL, and they could easily extend them (whether correct or not) to bring a court case against companies whether or not the case has any validity. Understand now?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Ah, but, see, MySQL AB makes its revenue by spreading exactly that FUD.
Yes, you can use MySQL legally in a commercial app without buying a license. You aren't linking to it. However, MySQL says that you *do* need a license. Enough people are going to be scared enough to buy a license. Open source people just see "GPL -- okay, must not be evil" and go ahead and use it.
This is why I use Postgres and avoid the whole ugly thing.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
If I were a knowledgeable player in the development of MySQL, I'd be laying down plans to start a foundation that will step in and pick up the open source development (forking if necessary) the minute any sale occurs.
Microsoft hasn't killed FoxPro but they have prevented it from becoming a competitor to Access. Prior to the purchase, FoxPro was on track to eat Access market share. It was faster, more stable, and had more functionality. They haven't killed FoxPro but have kept it in its place (running legacy specialized applications).
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
If oracle bought and canceled mysql you would see a number of people try to improve it with five hundred million cludgey add-ons. Eventually in about two or three years frustration over that mess would hit critical mass and someone would organize something to fix it, after most people had run out of steam for starting their own projects on it.
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Microsoft has brought Foxpro light years from what it started as...and it would probably have replaced Access, if not for the fact that everybody saw MS buy Foxpro way back when and decided that Foxpro was dead.
After more than 10 years of massively extending and improving the product, it looks like MS is finally throwing in the towel against this self fulfilling prophecy.
IMHO, this premature burial syndrome is as much a threat to MySql as Oracle deliberately killing it.
But can they fork the InnoDB stuff? I got the impression seemed to be more restrictive license-wise, as well as having more enterprise grade features.
If they can, there may be hope for MySQL. Otherwise, it's another victim of the Great Database Consolidation (i.e. Takeover), of Oracle.
I firmly believe they're not "softening their image" or "supporting open source", but quashing all non-commercial competition for a few million bucks here and there.
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That is the best outcome.
However, what the ex-MySQL/DBD/InnoBase/Oracle people cannot do is sell non-GPL licenses of the MySQL/InnoDB/DBD and make that a business model.
They can still do private modifications for customers on the GPL base code, but those customers cannot relicense those under a proprietary license.
That is the different of having MySQL own the code (which is today's scenario) vs. Oracle owning it and the developers leaving.
In both cases there is an impact, but less so on the open source community than on private licensees.
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If they could, they already would.
How exactly are you going to defeat Postgres 8.01, downloaded umpteen-hundred-thousand times ( 8, at least, by me ). You can't. You may stop future development on it, but at what cost? You can't get monetary remuneration from the authors of any significant value, so why bother? If somepgsqlvendor.com starts making a billion a year, well, that's an entirely different situation altogether, but then it'll be Oracle v somepgsqlvendor.com and not Oracle v pgsql.
In Oracle, you'd:
SELECT t1.id, t1.name, t2.id, t2.name, t3.id, t3.name
FROM t1 LEFT JOIN t2 ON t1.id = t2.fk_t1_id
LEFT JOIN t3 ON t2.id = t3.fk_t2_id
WHERE t1.name = $my_user;
In MySQL that's slow. It's faster to:
SELECT t1.id, t1.name FROM t1 WHERE t1.name = $my_user;
SELECT t2.id, t2.name FROM t2 WHERE t2.fk_t1_id = $t1_id;
SELECT t3.id, t3.name FROM t3 WHERE t3.fk_t2_id = $t2_id;
In Oracle that's slow.
Obviously, this is a simple example. But that's exactly how we load trees of objects. The associated INSERT/UPDATE statements to save the objects back to the database are even slower. At the time, the benchmarks said the speed optimization was worth while. I didn't know the maintence headache it would cause.
Refactoring the fast MySQL version into a fast Oracle version takes a good understanding of what the original code is trying to accomplish. Understanding is harder to acheive spread out like that.
These days, there are good Object-Relational Mapping tools. They were a bit harder to come by when we started the project (ie, too much money). It would be much simplier to refactor all the code to use a good ORM tool than to port to Oracle. That is a project I'm working on, since it can be done one class at a time instead of requiring an entire port.
I'll leave the rant about MySQL's stance on transaction (prior to InnoDB) for a different thread. Suffice it to say, we drank that koolaid too. Transactions are nearly impossible to refactor into code that was never designed for them.