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MySQL's Response to Oracle's Moves
mAriuZ writes "I've recently written two articles on this topic for Database Journal, the earlier, written after the InnoDB purchase, entitled Oracle's purchase of InnoDB, their release of Oracle Express, and the effect on MySQL, and the most recent, just after the Sleepycat purchase, entitled Pressure on MySQL increases as Oracle purchases Sleepycat, with more to come. Since I only do a monthly column for Database Journal, and things change quite quickly, I thought I'd post a few more thoughts on the topic."
I really like this move of bringing Jim Starkey aboard. I've heard his name before, and I think he will really point MySQL's new engine in the right direction.
From the interview, I see that he is a big fan of Java. I've only worked with a slightly older version of MySQL but I feel that Java support is where MySQL is lagging behind Oracle. While MySQL works with a JDBC connection, an Oracle database seems to return faster results and more functional result sets. And I don't know too much about how well MySQL stores java code, but I know the newer versions of Oracle have really added some neat functionality with that.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where MySQL is headed and I'm glad they're standing up to Oracle's monopolizing.
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
I'm looking forward to see MySQL come up with a real good open source transactional engine. MySQL has done a very good job in my point of view for the community, and besides that employes a fair amout of people. Getting a good engine as response to Oracles maneuver would be great.
My company uses the commercial version of MySQL in projects here and then, and I'd like to see it on more critical projects as well.
In Korea, all your base are Only For Old People
I know a bunch of people who work at Oracle and they all agree: Oracle is 100% focused internally on SAP. Other theories may be interesting intellectual exercises, but Oracle is trying to kill MySQL because SAP wanted to use MySQL as an option for their systems to prevent customers from buying an Oracle database.
Oracle and SAP are in the middle of a nuclear exchange here, and Oracle in particular doesn't care one bit how much money it costs them or what collateral damage in the open source space is inflicted. Their PR people may say otherwise, but its not a big secret there.
Jim Starkey said that he'd been working on a new engine for the last six years but couldn't integrate it fully with Firebird because of architectual problems. MySQL has an architecture designed to accept pluggable storage engines, so MySQL might end up with what he thinks is the next great performance improvement after Firebird.
What if Oracle really do "get it"?
That they understand the point of Open Source and their objective is to improve the standing of these applications by improving support / consulting / training etc (which is where they also plan to make money).
"The purchases send a message that MySQL won't achieve high-end database features without being beholden to Oracle."
"Even an outright purchase of MySQL by Oracle would not prevent anyone from using MySQL's server in a commercial application, without charge."
"You can't really buy an Open Source project. "
It seems to me that what Oracle is doing is not to try and take over or squash MySQL but rather to buy some more time. InnoDB is already OSS and I had thought Sleepycat was as well. MySQL has already been released under the GPL; no changing that retroactively. Even if Oracle had bought MySQL, the whole thing appears to be an attempt by Oracle to buy time while the new development team learns the innards of MySQL and/or codes a new transaction engine.
MySQL, with or without MySQL AB, will continue to exist and continue to be developed. Don't get me wrong, I am glad they declined the offer, but I don't think Oracle was looking to buy MySQL per se. They were just looking to buy time to keep the heat off.
Just my 2cents.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
The pressure is ALL on Oracle. The reason why they're doing all this is because they're scared. The vast majority of companies out there running Oracle really are beginning to realise that they DO NOT need to spend anywhere near the amount they do on Oracle. They've heard of Postgres and especially MySQL, and MySQL are sufficiently cheap enough where companies get the right support they need without Postgres being any sort of threat - just a good old fashioned competitor.
Oracle have overinflated revenues and profits based on crap software, and they've been doing it for years. Their management and configuration tools are utter crap as well considering what people are paying. I don't know what they do in that company all day. Good riddance as far as I'm concerned.
The guy who wrote this article (possible an Oracle fan) is simply putting some positive spin on some pretty panic moves from Oracle. It isn't going to make a blind bit of difference to MySQL, or Postgres for that matter.
You can do the equivalent of a hot backup without any special software by replicating your database to another server. When you need the backup, you stop the replication and make a backup of the copy. After you reconnect the replication, the replication server will catch up again.
This is documented in the excellent book "High Performance MySQL" by O'Reilly. One of the authors is a database guru at Yahoo.
We were using MS SQL and, while I was interested in open source databases, did not have the confidence to use an open source database until reading this book. I know many will point me to PostgreSQL too, but the tools and the references for MySQL were better.
Sunny
Be my Friend
Exactly.
This has been the part which pisses me off most about InnoDB. You cannot back it up online and the MySQL backup facilities introduced with 4.x are completely b0rken for it. At least in the GPL version. As a result I have had to write backup facilities of my own for the InnoDB databases we use (RT for once requires InnoDB)
Whatever MySQL will use and write it expect that it will not deliberately remove the backup facility to sell it as a special non-GPL addon. While MySQL has been known to withold some features from the GPL versions it has never shipped deliberate crippleware (and database without backup facilities is crippleware).
So as far as InnoDB is concerned - good buy and good riddance.
BerkleyDB is a different matter. It is heavily used as an embedded database. MySQL is only a minor use for it. In fact it has replaced Oracle as the dabatase of choice for telecommunications projects like high-end switches, network equipment, etc. Most of these used to have an Oracle backend 7 years ago. Not any more. Nowdays it is BDB turf. While there are replacements for it very few of them are as fully featured as BDB 3.x and higher.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
> Mysqldump doesnt take the DB down also
It does. It locks tables while it's running. Don't ever use it on a production system since you'll get users very upset when their systems unexpectedly lock-up for very long periods of time. For our main transaction table, it takes mysqldump about 9 hours to complete. There's no way to use that on a production system.
We also can't use replication since that would require shutting down our main server for almost an entire week to copy the data to our remote site to setup the initial copy of the databases.
MySQL just isn't ready yet to be used. You can't even backup the damn thing. The only thing we can do is backup the ibdata files and hope for MySQL is smart enough to sort out the problems if we have to do a restore. It's a horrible way for a database vendor to treat their customers.
According to the article, Oracle is also looking at Zend, the makers of PHP...PHP has been used very widely in the implentation of MySQL-based solutions. Granted, PhP isn't the only available option, but all these aquisitions could make for some headaches for a large number of users.
Bear in mind, that Oracle is also planning the release of a low-end product, Oracle Express, presumably to compete with the likes of MySQL and Postgres. I don't think I would ever use or recommend it, because at its core is the beginning of a short road to Oracle's usually-expensive licensing.
Of course I submitted this piece to Slashdot days ago, only to see it rejected. But the editors don't seem to want to look at original work :-) Only when someone else chews over it does it become worthy for Slashdot.
Com'on guys.
Bruce Perens.
"The fact that these purchases are raising doubts as to MySQL's future..."
I don't believe that to be the case. In fact, if anything, I have to agree with Bruce Perens who states "(MySQL)CEO Mickos won't dabble at vengeance and will keep looking at offers that - if nothing else - increase the evidence for valuation of his company.".
It seems to me that if the "premier" database vendor (Oracle) in the market is looking to buy up a "lesser" database, it implies that the target database is (perceived to be) a threat in some way to the larger vendor; implying that the "lesser" is in fact not lesser. This suggests that MySQL *is* a solid database ready for the enterprise. Not to mention, the GPL version of MySQL is not going anywhere, regardless of what happens to MySQL AB. Its development cycle may be slowed for a bit if MySQL were bought out, but MySQL is too important of an application to too many companies with the budget/talent to let die. Someone will be developing MySQL for the foreseeable future.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
MySQL may be crap, but their marketing dept has done great things over the years.
Get a hold of that trademark, and you'll own the low-end market for quite some time to come.
It would have been even better if MySQL got it earlier (like PostgreSQL did from the start). It's a shame that MySQL started getting cool (and necessary!) features only now when the market pressure on its company increased. Prior to this, it was practically stagnating.
-- Sig down
Uh, no. PostgreSQL isn't owned by any company. Because of that, Oracle can't do the same thing to it that it did to MySQL. That makes it an excellent possible backend for SAP, if SAP needed such a thing.
Furthermore, it's under the BSD license, so SAP wouldn't even need to redistribute the source in order to make use of it.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Unfortunately, powerful databases are large and complex beasts, and take years to get right. As much as I can understand why folks would flee from Larry, I think he'd be quite pleased if the mysql team were to go off and spend another five years recreating it.
Being an old fart I remember when MySQL first came out one of its selling features was that it was very small and lightweight. The developer lost some of the powerfull features that the big boys had but that was okay because MySQL was a little DB that you could run on a web server to keep track of Aunt Mildred's recipies and the like.
MySQL has of course since become a huge database with many of the abilities that it original small incarnation didn't need or want.
And now for something completely different
I can't even find what the the license cost for MySQL I have vague recollections of something about $250.00 for a commercial license free for non profit. On the web site there is a $595.00 survice contract, but no mention of a commercial use license.
On Oracle's web site I can get oracle 10 standard edition one for $4995.00 Processor Perpetual and enterprize for $40000.00 Processor perpetual. So I can only assume its double for your dual processor system.
So I can only assume that those of us that need a database and not even a feature rich database will simply move on to something else or pony up the $5000 to $40000 to have a DB to keep track of the CD collection.
JACEM
DOC Disinformation Obfuscation and Confusion
The carrot to FUD's stick
I don't think that Oracle is really anti-Open Source. They have released a ton of stuff, most importantly to me: o Big memory pages for the Linux Kernel (helps with TLB misses for shared memory) o OCFS 2, a very good clustered filesystem. o Firewire code o Async I/O linux support Oracle was probably the first major database to run on Linux (version 7 worked, version 8.0 was supported). That was almost 10 years ago. Sun used to be the bread-and butter platform for Oracle. Linux has basically replaced it. Oracle already owns the database market. Most SAP sites already use Oracle as the database. The reality is, no matter how good their database is, they won't make any more money from it. Feature-wise, Oracle is more than 10 years ahead of MySQL. These are features I use all the time, every day. Oracle Fin Apps is the only place their business can grow. While it isn't a great product, neither is SAP R/3. These are big bits of software. Fin Apps 11iR10.2 is about 50GB of install media. (That is a lot of code). With Oracle's acquisition of Peoplesoft and JD Edwards, SAP is really the only competetion.