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MySQL Cofounder Says Oracle Should Sell Database To a Neutral 3d Party
alphadogg writes "Oracle should resolve antitrust concerns over its acquisition of Sun Microsystems by selling open-source database MySQL to a suitable third party, its cofounder and creator Michael 'Monty' Widenius said in a blog post on Monday. Oracle's $7.4 billion acquisition of Sun is currently being held up by an investigation by the European Commission. The Commission's main concern seems to be MySQL, which was acquired by Sun in January 2008 for $1 billion. A takeover by the world's leading proprietary database company of the world's leading open source database company compels the regulator to closely examine the effects on the European market, according to remarks made by Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes last month. The key objective by Widenius is to find a home outside Oracle for MySQL, where the database can be developed and compete with existing products, including Oracle's, according to Florian Mueller, a former MySQL shareholder who is currently working with Monty Program AB on this matter." Richard Stallman agrees.
Yeah, those 2D parties are shallow and make for thin plots.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
SCO?
I'll take "Things you should have thought about before selling to Sun" for 1000 Alex
MySQL is open source. Why is there a big argument about who controls it? If whoever is controlling it goes in a direction that people don't like, don't you just fork it? If people really are worried about the future of MySQL, shouldn't there already be a fork?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
They have one-of-everything-else already.
Okay, here goes... Maybe they should sell it to Apple?
Yes, hate me, throw things at me. But Apple DOES love MySQL, it's an essential part of OS X Server. Unlike Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, Apple doesn't own an existing database product. Also keep in mind that MySQL the commercial product is not necessarily synonymous to MySQL the open-source project.
Unfortunately, MySQL uses the GPL, whereas Apple has always preferred to open-source under the Apache license.
MySQL Cofounder Says Oracle Should Sell Database To a Neutral 3d Party
So that leaves us with?
Hmmm ....
hang on, Stallman thinks it is a good idea? The kiss of death!
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
So its true, MySQL still doesn't support Transaction rollbacks.
If you come to a MySQL fork in the road, take it proprietary.
Is mySQL open source? If not, it doesn't matter that Larry owns it. If it is, it can fork. End of discussion.
There is more to the project than just the source. First, some of the people are still working for Sun/Oracle. Their expertise is kind of important, and it is not so easy to just pick up the source and start making changes.
The other issue is the documentation. That is not so free. The mysql documentation is considerable and is a tremendous resource. Back in the day, it was the deciding reason that I went with mysql. If I went on purely technical requirements alone I would have likely chosen a different platform.
Sounds like a good plan. Now if they can only find a neutral 3rd party dumb enough to pay anything close to $1 billion for it. How about Computer Associates, isn't that where bad software goes to die?
MySQL and Oracle have never directly competed, and never will. If Oracle were to shell MySQL, there are plenty of groups willing to jump in and maintain a fork. I don't know why a lot of people seem to be worried about Oracle's commitment to open source anyway. They have a good track record and there's no business reason to stop supporting it.
- illuminaut, arbiter elegantiarum.
This makes me think of nVidia's purchase of 3dfx. 3dfx (makers of the famous Voodoo series of video cards) were very friendly to the open source community... They played a very pivotal role in the realm of 3D rendering on Linux when it was still in its infancy, contributing significantly to OpenGL. Then nVidia bought them and discontinued its entire product line... And something like 6 months later it was announced that nVidia won the contract to make the graphics chips on the original Microsoft X-Box. Coincidence?
MySQL, by virtue of being an open source product available in a "community" version for free, has become a central part of the business model of countless small businesses. And it's just fallen into the ownership of its biggest closed-source, for-pay competitor. This could potentially have ramifications for the global economy as a whole. Very scary.
Someone paid $1 BILLION for a software company that made maybe a few million in revenue a year, and who already distribute most of the source code for their main product? Why?
They won't have a leg to stand on if they try to force this. There is an enormous amount of competition at all levels in all segments of the Database market.
On several occasions I've been able to convince customers that MySQL was good enough but only because Oracle owned it:
biggest closed-source, for-pay competitor? They're for vastly different purposes, and if anything they can complement each other, but don't compete. MySQL won't die, even if Oracle decides it's not worth maintaining, it would just change names and continue as a separate fork. More likely, Oracle will continue to put development effort into it to make it play nicely with their own line of products.
- illuminaut, arbiter elegantiarum.
disclaimer: I work for Sun and know nothing about mysql...
Here's what I don't get, Monte and company sell mysql to Sun for 1 billion dollars.
I assume Monte got a decent portion of that.. I also assume that Monte had to
sign a no compete agreement for that sum of money.
I'm sure Sun would be more that happy to sell back mysql if
the original owners would like to give the $1 billion back.. I'm
guessing they wouldn't.
I would bet Monte wouldn't even give his portion back. Could
this be Monte trying to keep the money he got and try to get
out of a non compete agreement? (if he did indeed sign one).
Yes, I'm bitter... ;-) As the EU holds this up longer, more people
@ Sun will lose jobs over political crap. If Oracle was based out
of the EU this wouldn't have happened. I'm willing to wager if SAP
wasn't based out of the EU, this wouldn't be delayed either...
Everybody leaves the Ark and Moses addresses the animals "Go forth and multiply".
So all the animals go into the forest, but Moses notices two snakes that haven't moved.
"Why don't you go and multiply?", He asks.
One of the snakes answers "We can't, we're Adders!".
So Moses and his sons chop down one of the trees and form it into a rough-hewn table.
He addresses the snakes and says "Here is your log table, now go forth and multiply".
How can a transaction between two U.S. companies be held up by some European commission? What am I missing?
Of course, we live in a capitalist system, so the most likely answer you'll get to that suggestion is "f*** off" but more politely worded.
Note to open source guys. Larry Ellison thanks you for the free labor.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Wait. I'm confused. Oracle is now evil and Microsoft isn't evil? When did this happen? As a Microsoft hater do I need to hate Oracle now too?
I'm confused. Is this some sort of plot by Bill Gates to divide and conquer? What next!?
At least Steve Jobs is still okay. ...or is he?
A tip of my hat to you, for pulling out a pertinent (to the parent) cartoon from 10 years and 2 days ago.
I honestly do not understand why some people persist in pimping postgres. I remember 10 years ago, postgres was a ghost project -- no updates/maintenance. the entire fucking world adopted mysql except for the postgres-obsessed.
I'm convinced that if postgres were dominant and mysql were a rounding error, that these same people would be pimping mysql.
Sort of like people who stop listening to a band when it becomes famous.
Sun paid about 1 billion for MsSQL and Oracle says EU hold up is costing them 100s of millions of dollars a month by delaying decision which appears to largely hinge on Oracle's plans for MySQL. So Oracle must value it very highly since with a few more months of delay, Oracle reluctance to let it go will cost it more than it's worth.
So why does Oracle care that much about MySQL? One can speculate...
The letter by RMS addresses that question. That being that the commercially licensed version of MySQL funded suns continued development of the GPL'ed MySQL, and oracle would have a conflict of interest in continuing to develop and license a low cost alternative to its high priced core product.
You mean like Oracle's ownership of Berkley DB?
Or is Monty still bitter about Oracle purchasing InnoDB?
Fixed.
(Sarcastic responses from rabid, clueless, brainwashed, American white male capitalist fanatics incoming)
...is that if they keep it, it'll create Antitrust issues for them. So the suggestion is to sell it.
Except, that's isn't exactly a good idea right now either. After all, they sold it to Sun for $1 Billion USD. What would it say if it Oracle/Sun sold it for less - even $900 Million USD? That MySQL wasn't worth $1 Billion USD; which would not be good PR for the F/OSS community, likely run afoul of Antitrust issues (for the PR reasons - especially if Oracle/Sun went - "see it mustn't have been all that good since we couldn't get what we paid for it"), but at least Oracle/Sun would get a tax write off on the difference.
So then, why not kill two birds with one stone - spin MySQL off as its own company. Make it a non-profit (MySQL Foundation) or something; keep a seat or two of the board, and let the community fill the rest. Oracle could get very good PR for doing so too.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Flame bait, probably, but I was wondering what people thought of Terracotta, and technology like it.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
That's racist.
Oh, and sexist too.
Rabid, clueless, capitalist fanaticism knows no boundaries.
My pet theory is that SAP is helping block the merger due to Mysql MAXDB. Which I believe used to be Adibas from SAP.
If Oracle get it hands on that they could hurt SAP revenues and grab SAP customers. I don't believe the EU will back down. I wonder it that could kill the merger?
I can just imagine the people replying, "We don't know you well enough for an inner join, but feel free to take either the seat to the left or the right."
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Perhaps they could sell it back to Monty ... I'm sure he'd know what to do with it.
In the letter he co-authored:
@@@@@@
Although I believe their analysis is largely correct as far as MySQL's survival is concerned, it demonstrates very little faith in GPL-licensed projects to grow and be maintained in absence of proprietary rights and directly contradicts the overall message of RMS and company. If they merely posited that Oracle could delay the development of MySQL for, say, a year it would not necessarily be contradictory, but to propose this is an earth shaking event and do so in the manner which they did is simply inconsistent with RMS and his follower's message.
MySQL competes with Oracles ability to compete in the space MySQL currently occupies (see Oracle Database 10g Express Edition). The company I worked for happily paid for expensive Oracle licensing for years before becoming comfortable enough with MySQL to begin to transition away from the enterprise licensing (and growth limiting cost). We didn't really need all the features, so we didn't effectively gain much of anything by using their database, but at the time our company started they seemed the best choice from what was available. I'd expect many companies have probably found themselves in similar circumstances and in that way MySQL (PostgreSQL, etc) are effectively cutting Oracles higher cost offerings out of a not so insignificant portion of the available business.
The real question might be could the new Oracle business culture accept the smaller margins offered by supporting a open source database in favor of the more lucrative model they've been accustomed to. And they might be able to do it, or see that they need to whether they like it or not. But this is Oracle we're talking about, common sense need not apply.
RAC licensing has probably helped boost the popularity of MySQL as much as anything. We paid it for years just to have access to more or less basic SQL features.
Quack, quack.
... because the result of comparing anything to NULL with = is always NULL, obviously.
For the same reason that Google paid massive amounts for Youtube and Microsoft paid massive amounts for a tiny share (1.8% or so, if I recall) of Facebook though neither of those makes any profit (quite the opposite, by a large margin). I am sure we could find many more examples of this (increasingly common) trend. Very large companies seem to invest massive amounts in products that couldn't conceivably even pay back those investments.
I don't understand the reason but a wild guess would be the imago effect. Paying huge sums of money for something hints that the company has made an acquisition they consider extremely important, so they probably are able to gain some large benefit from it in the future, even if we don't understand how that could happen ("Sun works in mysterious ways"). Paying so much must mean that it is something *huge*. A whole new direction for the company. Something the company is willing to push onwards and invest in... Well, you get the idea. More pages in finance magazines, more interest from investors, etc.
No matter what the imago effect is, I still do think that it is stupid (Dollar to imago ratio just can't be good when you waste hundreds of millions). But I just don't see any alternatives to my hypothesis.
They could benefit from the experience at Oracle, and maybe add a few engineers to the team that understand "data integrity" and "don't corrupt data when the server dies", oh, and, "stop corrupting the database when the disk runs out of space".
- oZ
// i am here.
... because the result of comparing anything to NULL with = is always NULL, obviously.
Except in MySQL, when it isn't.
Just fork it. I am never going to use Oracle MySQL for anything, I would sooner switch to PostGres for everything I do.
M
Wow...someone really doesn't want anybody to know about non-GPL licensed FOSS, do they? ;)
In a free market, wouldn't this be a boon for PostgreSQL? Oh, wait, that would be in a free market. Never mind.
Yep, but ask on slashdot and you'll find out you and I and other pgsql users are the "fanbois". urg.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
Unless you basically live like the Amish[1] then aren't you being just a little bit hypocritical?
[1] Not saying there's anything wrong with it, by the way, if it's what floats your raft[2].
[2] Boats, with their pointy ends and all, are the work of the devil.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Oracle will throw money and love at MySQL until it is dead. If I were Oracle (and wanted MySQL dead) I would fund as many forks of MySQL as possible. Ideally I would fund the forks run by the biggest bozos with huge egos and who love to spend money marketing (My MySQL is better than yours). I would also allow each of the forks to call themselves the official MySQL fork so as to confuse everyone. On top of that I would create a byzantine approval process for these forks so that any I don't like would have to change its name from MySQL. Then I could prove to the various anti-trust investigators how much I (Oracle) loved MySQL and that we did nothing but support a vibrant and competitive community. And if any of the forks begins to take off I would pull the rug out from underthem and give money to whomever was causing them the most problems. This might cost Oracle a few 10's of millions but I can't imaging the number in lost sales the MySQL has cost Oracle over the years. Billions? If I can think of this in 5 minutes what can the Oracle marketing people come up with? If I were an anti-trust government organization I would force Oracle to hand MySQL back to the original creators for a buck and let them carry on as they were.
Hello Everyone,
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Thanks,
Imtiaz.