Oracle and MySQL -- Good Move or Bad Bet? 226
sendai-X writes "With the recently announced purchase of Innobase, Oracle has shown it's intention to further support open source. This is key as open source enters the mainstream in business and in light of the success IBM has had with the Eclipse project, and Sun recently looking at purchasing PostgresSQL. What do Slashdot users think about this merger? Is it beneficial to the market and database users by having the largest database vendor openly support MySQL and provide an upgrade path to Oracle? Or is it just another cog in the Oracle machine in their attempt to dominate the enterprise IT market? Will this change the database market landscape? Will it help or hurt IBM and Microsoft?"
Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Informative)
That would be a neat trick wouldn't it?
They could buy a company that sells Postgres support or makes a version of Postgres that they sell, but they aren't going to be 'buying postgres'. This is may seem like nit picking but it is somewhat important. PostgreSQL is free software in every sense of the term and Sun is not going to buy it. They are not going to purchase control of it.
I guess they could try and hire all the main developers or something. Though I think that'd be tough too. And I'm glad of that as Postgres is my favorite rdbms. I like that it is free and as far as I can tell is going to stay that way for as long as it exists.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Informative)
Right on, yup, that's about the only way they could do that - by hiring Tom Lane or some of the other gurus. But they can't "buy PostgreSQL". There have been some interesting discussions on this on the pgsql-advocacy [postgresql.org] list recently as well.
> And I'm glad of that as Postgres is my favorite rdbms.
Same here! 3.5 million records [blogs.com] and cranking along; PostgreSQL is meeting RubyForge's needs very nicely.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
Just comparing 3.5 million records to 45 million.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:3, Informative)
Consider yourself corrected. I am running a PostgreSQL database with complicated foreign key relationships among tables with millions of rows each. Most of the tables have a couple dozen columns. Joins on these schemas typically involve 5-10 tables. Result sets with appropriate where clauses are typically in the low t
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
I just wanted to compare fish stories on large tables. Our downloads table (currently 43M rows) is mainly insert-only, but I run a series of queries against it each month for stats. There's also a web-based stats tool that's open to a select handful of persons.
Nothing transactional, but still a large number of rows to query.
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess I could understand if he had added a jab about how mysql could never do that. But he didn't. He's just touting the database management system that he likes.
The mysql vs. postgres thing gets so out of hand. It reminds me of when I compliment my 5 year old and my 4 year old gets upset because I didn't compliment her too. When I wrote my initial post I thought of mentioning the MySql part of the issue and the trouble they may be in due to the Oracle move, but I decided not to just because it is so difficult to discuss in a rational way. Too many people start digging up the same old tired arguments.
I don't care if everybody starts using MySql and it gets voted 'best thing ever'. I'll still be happy as a clam in high tide, running what I prefer. That's the most valuable part of free software in my opinion.
Re:So? (Score:2)
I didn't say one platform was better.
Well, they could purchase PostgreSQL, Inc.... (Score:2)
What Sun was talking about was packaging PostgreSQL and shipping it as a
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Insightful)
MySQL AB is at the epicenter of development of MySQL DB, and requires copyright transfers for any outside changes. Paid developers at one small company largely create and support the entire database. Some users get a sense of security that there is "one person to go to", and a single focused business behind it. In some ways this business model worked well... their marketing was very successful, and the database might be described as more "unified" than, for example, PostgreSQL, where things like FTS and replication are independently developed (which is actually good, but can confuse users who think that "it's not good enough to be included").
However, the PostgreSQL development model has been working very effectively, not dependent on any one company. A short list of contributors includes the likes of Fujitsu, Sun, Affilias (manages all
When Great Bridge hired a bunch of the PostgreSQL developers, then got scared and pulled funding, the developers went back to the community. The community was the core to begin with, and development continued as always. Other companies came in to support it, and development has never been stronger. More importantly, the community has never been stronger.
The reason MySQL DB users are concerned, even though the source is GPL, is because MySQL DB is heavily dependent on MySQL AB. If MySQL is forced out by Oracle, what's left aside from some source code? There are a lot of users who would rally and try to build a community. But building a community to support an RDBMS takes more than just a few good programmers. It takes years to build the kind of community that works like the PostgreSQL Global Development Group (PGDG). It takes programmers, organizers, advocates, managers, advocates, support channels, channels for accepting new developers (for instance, if a company wants to pay for a feature), decision makers, and arbitrators (to prevent too much forking). And it takes a lot of time to figure out who does what, and when they do it, and how to reconcile conflicts or scheduling difficulties, how to work as a team so that work is integrated properly and time is not wasted.
If someone has a proposal for a feature, who do they ask so that it's heard? Will a reliable decision be made about whether/when to progress? Who should step up and program? Who will open the channels of communication between the programmer and any other programmers working in similar code areas? Who will enforce project "standards"? Who will devise the standards? Does it go in this release or wait 'til the next? When is feature freeze? Who determines what quality level constitutes a release? Should the patch be backported? If it breaks any compatibility, who will devise a proper release timeline to avoid hurting existing users too much?
It really takes a long time to build those conventions and organize people into a functional development group. MySQL DB users can only hope that MySQL AB is still around for a while. If MySQL AB goes the way of Great Bridge, MySQL DB may be left in chaos. In the meantime, start forming a community that can operate outside of MySQL AB. The monolithic development/business model seems to be in question right now.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Informative)
MySQL AB is at the epicenter of development of MySQL DB, and requires copyright transfers for any outside changes. Paid developers at one small company largely create and support the entire database. Some users get a sense of security that there is "one person to go to", and a single focused business behind it. In some ways this business model worked well... their marketing was very successful, and the database might be described as more "unified" than, for example, PostgreSQL, where things like FTS and replication are independently developed (which is actually good, but can confuse users who think that "it's not good enough to be included").
Among the technologies that MySQL licenses from third parties under commercial redistribution licenses:
Berkeley DB (Sleepycat Software)
InnoDB (Oracle, formerly Innobase)
MaxDB (SAP AG)
See the problem? MySQL itself is largely a langauge parser and a simple and technically inadequate storage engine (for anything where data integrity matters). In other words they don't own any of the foundations of their technologies.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
MySQL can only go through so many "rebirths" (MyISAM, BDB, InnoDB, ____ ) before the users figure out that the only thing that's really "MySQL" is the language.
And people don't make new database installations based on syntax.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
1) Bloat. Running MySQL on top of PostgreSQL?
2) Code merging would be a pain. PostgreSQL is process-based and unlikely to be internally threadsafe, while MySQL is thread-based.
3) Breaking backward compatibility unless you want to force PostgreSQL to truncate numbers etc
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
I'm trying to wrap my mind around this statement, and am failing.
Can you elaborate on this?
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
However the more serious one is that threads all have the same access to all the memory in the process space, leading to all sorts of possible issues. If you plug in code from a non-threaded app into a thr
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:4, Interesting)
That kind of nuts and bolts nerd attitude is bad enough with mainstream programming (compilers will never be fast enough, shared objects will never be fast enough, virtual machines will never be fast enough...) but it's lethal to DBMS development.
One of the fundamental principles of the relational model is that you separate your logical constructs from the physical implementation. If anything, using other people's storage software was one of the few things they got right! (Of course, the rest of the time they succumbed to the nuts and bolts nerds and talked about how high they could score on arbitrary benchmarks and how integrity was for sissies, &c &c.)
A DBMS is a *system* and when you design such a system you need to step back from the details of implementation and work out a rigorous, mathematically grounded plan for how it is going to work.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the fundamental principles of the relational model is that you separate your logical constructs from the physical implementation. If anything, using other people's storage software was one of the few things they got right! (Of course, the rest of the time they succumbed to the nuts and bolts nerds and talked about how high they could score on arbitrary benchmarks and how integrity was for sissies, &c &c.)
You have a point. But my point isn't that this is technically good or bad. The point is
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is most likely the primary reason that Oracle made their move. SAP actively supports MySQL development, and promotes it (and naturally MaxDB) for use by customers who don't need huge enterprise-scale databases. Oracle and SAP are in fierce competition, and Oracle will most likely do anything they can to get in the way.
What if.... (Score:2)
Everybody is putting an evil spin on this but it could be as simple as hedging your bets.
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
But PostgreSQL is not Free Software in any sense of the term...
Re:Purchase PostgreSQL? (Score:2)
I hope I'm not feeding a troll...
PostgreSQL is released under the BSD license, which according to the definition by the FSF [fsf.org], is Free Software. (It is not, however, "copyleft.")
You are referring to MySQL, I take it. (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like Oracle and InnoDB?
Now about PostgreSQL. It is a community-owned, decentralized project with many copyright owners and contributors. The core community includes developers from the following companies:
Command Prompt, Inc.
PostgreSQL, Inc.
EnterpriseDB
Green Pl
Re:You are referring to MySQL, I take it. (Score:4, Informative)
I would say that Red Hat employing Tom Lane, one of the most important developers, of PostgreSQL is a serious contribution. Tom Lane's contributions to 8.1 include:
Improve concurrent access to the shared buffer cache
Allow index scans to use an intermediate in-memory bitmap
Automatically use indexes for MIN() and MAX()
EnterpriseDB has claimed to contribute every generally-applicable aspect fo their work back under the BSD license. They have committed to overhauling the stored procedure architecture for the next version in order to offer SQL-99-compliant PSM support.
EnterpriseDB also employes Avaro Harrera who made the following contributions to 8.1:
Move
Add shared row level locks using SELECT
Add dependencies on shared objects, specifically roles
Note that the above issues were just the most major contributions listed in the press release. The 8.1 release represents nearly a year of development by several full-time developers hired by different firms.
But the contributions are not limited to the core source tree. Afilias largely sponsored the Slony-I replication (master/slave with cascade and failover) project by paying Jan Wiek and Chris Browne. Command Prompt released the PL/PHP handler (also open source), PostgreSQL Inc released PGReplicator (though few if anyone still uses this project), and more. My firm is contemplating contributing some table utilities we have developed.
Looking back to 8.0, SRA contributed most of their Powergres Win32 port back in order to get the main codebase working on Windows. This was not a trivial contribution.
Nobody is required to contribute anything back under the BSD license, but in reality it makes a lot of business sense to contribute everything back aside from those that are part of your core differentiation strategy. This is because the community can then maintain it and it is less work for you to merge with future versions. You cannot compete with Free/Open Source in today's economy. So these license wars are just plain silly.
Of course MySQL's main problems have come not from their choice of the GPL but rather from their choice of offering non-Free licenses. PostgreSQL is way ahead of MySQL's functionality despite being of similar ages. This is due in large part to the fact that so many contributions have been made to PostgreSQL by a number of companies. I look forward to the further contributions of Pervasive, Fujitsu, and many others.
When Great Bridge went under, PostgreSQL was not adversely affected. But that was due in large part to the fact that they did not own the core development community. They only had a strong role in that regard. MySQL is more vulnerable to MySQL AB going out fo business, but I think that this is a short-term hazard. Users of non-Free apps requiring MySQL should be very worried, however...
It's beautiful QWZX (Score:5, Funny)
Clearly his ultimate goal is to put Oracle technology into MySQL so that he can give it away for free. Now, you may say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join Larry and me. And world shall live as one.
Re:It's beautiful QWZX (Score:2)
Re:It's beautiful QWZX (Score:3, Interesting)
" Oracle, the world's second largest software giant was recently the
subject of much scrutiny. It was discovered that Oracle had hired a
detective agency, Investigative Group International (IGI), to find out
some dirt on its direct competitor, Microsoft. Essentially, it was
alleged that offers were made to the janitorial staff from the office
of Association for Competitive Technology (ACT). ACT is a trade group,
which is known to be pro-Microsoft [11]. Oracle stated that
Bad for open source, maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's very likely that Oracle does just that. Oracle wins on several fronts:
(1) Set back a competitor by a lot, possibly completely knocking it out of some markets.
(2) Cause more OSS FUD: "What will happen to your open source vendor? It could evaporate tomorrow. Stick with Oracle, who will be there for you."
(3) Shift the market back toward the mentality of traditional relational databases, where there is a lot of emphasis on data integrity constraints, and expensive DBAs, and less emphasis on casual users.
MySQL had the potential to cause them a lot of problems. Oracle found a way to stop that. If it was a predatory move against MySQL AB, everything was perfect, including the timing. Many companies were just waiting for the 5.0 release to try it out I'm sure, and the next thing they know Oracle has MySQL AB by the ____. It's too coincidental, and too perfect, there's no way it's a "merger".
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:5, Interesting)
By who? Not by MySQL AB. It takes a long time to make a new community work effectively.
MySQL AB is between a rock and a hard place, I think we can agree here. If Oracle cuts off InnoDB from commercial licensing, MySQL will stop developing/supporting it, it's only a matter of time. They simply can't have a GPL version that's better than their commercial version. Then, without transactions or RI, their "enterprise-ness" and usefulness will be called into question.
So that leaves the community. But the community is too wrapped around MySQL AB to function on it's own just yet. That will take time.
And that time is precisely what Oracle doesn't want MySQL to have. If the development of MySQL DB is set back by 12-18 months, that will surely be a victory for Oracle, who will secure a strong lead ahead of the most popular open source database. The wind will be stolen from the 5.0 release, and another few rounds of businessmen will make long-term commitments to Oracle (in the form of licenses and hardware).
What is the downside to Oracle?
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
As you say, this effectively silences the hype surrounding 5.0. It is a very savvy move by Oracle. (I know this is redundant, but it is worth emphasizing).
Now, MySQL doesn't really compete with Oracle *yet.* However, it is likely to me that if Oracle causes MySQL to go belly up, i
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
Indirectly, they do. You could look at it like Oracle is nipping it in the bud, I suppose.
Oracle certainly doesn't want a company running around to a bunch of people saying "Database" and "$495" in the same sentence.
And they certainly don't want a lot of casual database users who shift the market away from Oracle's traditional database model of "data integrity, expensive DBAs, referential integrity, expensive DBAs, redundancy, and expensive DBAs", to MySQL
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
Provided you don't end up with date overflow errors (you aren't doing scientific apps where you need dates after 10000AD or before 10000BC, are you)? And a dozen or so "what you pu
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
=> select '1000000-10-10 10:10:10'::timestamp;
ERROR: timestamp out of range: "1000000-10-10 10:10:10"
I'm a big PostgreSQL fan, but you're just being rediculous if you ask MySQL to accept arbitrarily large years. It should error out and be done.
How many scientific applications require you to know what day of the week Oct 18, 20000000000000005 is?
I think you're looking for the "float" datatype. And if you're not, you really should make your own type, because your needs are obviously v
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
MySQL freakes out at years with > 4 digits. PostgreSQL is a bit better, but for really large years, you may need to create your own type. This is fairly simple in PostgreSQL but hardly feasible in MySQL.
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
But in general, I agree that type extensibility is a vital component of an RDBMS.
No. Bad for dual-licensing in general (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the fact is MySQL depends on non-Free relicensing from Oracle now, so they are now very vulnerable at the moment.
Re:No. Bad for dual-licensing in general (Score:2)
Re:No. Bad for dual-licensing in general (Score:2)
If MySQL AB closes its doors, the only clear users are the developers of non-Free MySQL-based apps.
I actually see a number of possibilities for what could happen after....
1) Oracle buys MySQL and uses it as a low-end offering, and improves their upgrade path from MySQL to Oracle. I think this is quite likely.
2) MySQl truly fizzles. I think this is least likely.
3) The core developers are picked up by other FOSS-friendly companies offering MySQL
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
They are a commercial company. It only makes sense for people to donate to the cause itself, that is, the actual development of the MySQL DB product; not the shareholders behind a company that is associated with the cause. How would you feel if you donated some money, and then the investors liquidated or changed the business model? Your charity just went to some suits.
I am willing to skip a meal
It isn't a hunger strike, dude. At least make enough use of the bounties of m
Re:Bad for open source, maybe (Score:2)
As for my eating habits - my wife has tried to change me in that regard but I'm not a breakfast person and would rather just drink some wa
Larry is losing his way... (Score:2)
What they (Larry and Scott) are seeing is hype. There's tons and tons of hype about PC's replacing big iron, etc, etc, etc. Even mid-level servers are often just a PC
As far as I know (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As far as I know (Score:5, Funny)
Thank you.
Re:As far as I know (Score:3, Funny)
Right, after all Larry Ellison & Oracle might have bought Innodb in order to both:
1. improve a competitor's product (mysql)
2. slash their own throats by cutting their primary revenue stream from the oracle database
Could be.
Wouldn't be impossible.
You never know.
Better just wait and see.
Cross our fingers and hope.
and the fact that in one fell swoop they
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that the only people who can answer if the move was good or bad, are the MySQL developers. I'd suggest Slashdot to have an interview with them so they can dissipate our fears.
Little fish don't know squat. (Score:2)
When a big company buys a little company the people in the little company (even the suits, let alonw the developers) normally don't have anything to say about how their stuff is used once it's acquired. If it's going to be bad for their stuff they typically find out only when it goes bad - by finding themselves transferred to something else or laid off.
An interview might let us know if it's ALREADY gone bad.
Re:Little fish don't know squat. (Score:2)
I'm working for a company that is profitable but uses free-MySQL because there wasn't much money 10 years ago as a start-up. Now we can afford to go to oracle and it might make sense to do it. I'm sure there's lots of companies like mine. If MySQL goes under, we have the cash, we probably won't go with Postgres. Plus let's face it guys, experience with Oracle gets you better jobs then experience with MySQL so I would ha
Re:Scary (Score:2)
Bad move for Oracle... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oracle IS database...so it seems silly to get another completely unrelated code-tree to deal with. They should have acquired some sort of application server to sell paired with their DB like IBM does with WebSphere and DB2.
Re:Bad move for Oracle... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bad move for Oracle... (Score:2)
Re:Bad move for Oracle... (Score:2, Insightful)
Or, as a company that has a Linux version and recognizes that bringing out a complete DBMS for small applications can be overkill, it might be smart to have a smaller product that breaks a shop into PL/SQL and makes it easy to upgrade to Oracle. Plus the added bonuses of being an open source product... I think that might be what they call a strategic purchase.
They should have acquired some sort of application server to s
Re:Bad move for Oracle... (Score:2)
Who said anything about supporting or maintaining InnoDB?
There are two reasons I could see for acquiring Innobase. The first is to basically hire the staff of the company and fold them into Oracle's main product development.
The second is simply to damage MySQL AB.
These are not mutually exclusive. MySQL users should be afraid. Very afraid.
Re:Bad move for Oracle... (Score:2)
Several times in the last couple of years, Oracle has tried to change our license and squeeze an extra $30K out of us.
Each time we said that such an act may make us seriously consider MySQL. Personally, I don't think MySql is there yet, but as a bargaining chip, it works well enough. Oracle backed off.
Re:Bad move for Oracle... (Score:2)
Each time we said that such an act may make us seriously consider MySQL. Personally, I don't think MySql is there yet, but as a bargaining chip, it works well enough. Oracle backed off.
Mention PostgreSQL some time
Possible Conspiracy Theory (Score:3, Interesting)
Well... Is it possible that Oracle "bought" Innobase is to "kill" MySQL (the company)? Look at this: MySQL allied with SCO, which is to me like a poisoning tactic. If there were legal battles, Oracle would likely win. When this is the case, SCO/MySQL alliance roll out. If they lost, Oracle will develop InnoDB using GPL license only, forcing SCO/MySQL to roll out in either case. When MySQL the company is over, Oracle abandon InnoDB with one less (albeit lesser) competitor.
Though you might argue that someone in the future will pick up MySQL code, I'd say that it's less likely. It's far easier to switch to other alternatives such as PostgreSQL.
More Likely Conspiracy Theory (Score:2)
Re:Possible Conspiracy Theory (Score:2)
Seems pretty straightforward to me, really. Oracle's core business is selling their RDBMS. Their primary selling point against MySQL is that MySQL is a "toy" database because it's not ACID-compliant [wikipedia.org] (among other things). MySQL AB has wasted a lot of breath over the years arguing that ACID-compliance is not as important as speed. To low end customers, that might make sense. To customers whose businesses depend on data integrity -- i.e., the BIG customers -- it doesn't.
Innobase makes a product that tak
Oracle's Java guys seem to be pro-open source.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most recently, I was trying to get the "update center" functionality working this past weekend and I got emails from several Oracle guys [blogs.com] with fixes for various problems. It's pretty nice to get help right from the core guys...
Really a bet against MySQL (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Really a bet against MySQL (Score:2)
I disagree. Oracle 8i to Oracle 9i to Oracle 10g. I think there were great advances. Not just in the database either. OCFS is an open sourced cluster filesystem created by Oracle.
As for my notes on the Oracle MySQL subject.
This was clearly a step towards protecting their (Oracle) business. They can (and probably will) strong arm MySQL in one way or another. How that effects MySQL depend
Oracle has MySQL by the balls (Score:2)
Granted, I did a benchmark with the application my group is developing using MySQL and PostgreSQL and MySQL was much faster. MySQL has certainly done a good job for what they intended MySQL
Re:Oracle has MySQL by the balls (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Does Larry Ellison (Oracle CEO) do things for the good of the industry or little guys?
Answer: *Never*
2. Is there any opportunity for the Oracle DB to reuse IP within Innodb
Answer: Almost certainly not
3. Is there a trivial upgrade path from Innodb/Mysql to Oracle
Answer: No
4. Ok, with that out of the way - what possible reason would oracle have to acquire Innodb?
Answer: obviously to cripple an opponent by robbing it of critical infrastructure - through licensing changes
5. How will this benefit OSS Customers?
Answer: not in any way imaginable
It's like this: Oracle is seeing customers moving to mysql for the small stuff. But they make money on the small stuff too - and even if oracle is superior to mysql in 7 ways out of 10, they're loosing cash to mysql. This move completely kills all mysql momentum in the market place:
- Mysql now has to dedicate resources to finding an innodb replacement. Good luck - there are no commodity persistant layers that support transactions like Innodb.
- Oracle can renew the license agreement at a much higher price, thereby winning short-term revenue at MySQL's expense!
- MySQL was talking about a big-enterprise role just down the road (before they got wind of this buy out and started acting meek a couple of weeks ago). Much of what they're missing is really functionality that should go into Innodb - Heikki Tuuri (innodb creator) has often stated that "partitioning for all table types will probably be available in 2006 or 2007". If Innodb built that they could start capturing a big chunk of the oracle revenue. This threat is now dead - with the only other strong competitors DB2 and SQL Server.
- In spite of being GPL, good luck on finding another crew of programmers that specialize in relational database engines to this product up. The few that exist in the open source world seem to all work at postgresql.
So yeah, Larry has MySQL by the balls right now. MySQL AB was probably looking forward to a big GA announcement for v5 next month - but there is no good publicity for MySQL in the foreseeable future now.
MySQL speed (Score:2)
Choose based on administration complexity for a minimal setup, if you like (favoring MySQL), or on license restrictions (favoring PostgreSQL), or on features (PostgreSQL, for now), or on development community size (MySQL)
Re:MySQL speed (Score:3, Interesting)
I personally don't doubt that ShatteredDreams' found MySQL/InnoDB faster then PostgreSQL.
Forking InnoDB insufficient for MySQL because (Score:4, Insightful)
MySQL cannot continue reselling licenses to MySQL w/InnoDB without an agreement from Oracle (at least without risking a lawsuit which gets into the sticky issue of whether MySQL as a work is derivative of InnoDB). This is not like SCO suing IBM. It is like IBM suing SCO, except that MySQL might have a bit more of a case than SCO simply because derivation is not so clear cut (IANAL though).
But it gets worse....
MySQL does not own the copyrights to any transaction-safe table type. Not BDB, not InnoDB, not MaxDB.
Re:Oracle has MySQL by the balls (Score:2)
Care to show us your benchmark, or at least what type of query MySQL is faster at? *Everything* (simple queries, table-scans, index-scans, simple joins, complex joins, multiple self-joins for hierarchical queries, etc) I tried suggested that PostgreSQL is faster or as fast, *except* for connection startup time (as Postgres spawns a process per connection), which is typically handled
Clear upgrade path (Score:2)
It's much less easy to make the case for someone to "upgrade" from PostgreSQL to Oracle. PostgreSQL would cannibalize a small-but-significant portion of Oracle's more expensive sales, once the Oracle brand name was attached to it.
Prevents MySQL from lowering standards (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, the type of database practices common among MySQL users, like pushing work into the application, aren't on a trajectory toward Oracle.
Re:Prevents MySQL from lowering standards (Score:2)
The concern is that MySQL could see a major part of that structure taken away from them.
Re:Prevents MySQL from lowering standards (Score:2)
However, because of Oracle's hostile move, I tend to think of it as though Oracle bought MySQL AB itself. It's not exactly the same, but it certainly could turn out that way.
Not MyOracle (Score:3)
Should have previewed! (Score:2)
Maybe they'll fracture into smaller consulting firms, small is the new big, etc. and become part of the new longtail of innovation [unbeknownst.net] which will be good for any business that needs a database, which is most of 'em.
What are you talking about? (Score:2)
I'll admit it, I love Oracle.. They are the only database vendor out there making real advances.. Everyone else, DB2, SQL Server, etc are playing catch up. I'll be the first to admit they are not perfect... At times i'm as frustrated as anyone else..
Article on open standards.. [oracle.com]
Will it help or hurt IBM and Microsoft? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes.
Ha! let them (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that there are two MySQLs. There's 4.1 and lower, which doesn't really support the ANSI SQL standard. You know, wonderful little peeves like 'CROSS JOIN' requires an 'ON' directive because MySQL treats it like an 'INNER JOIN'. Or maybe you want to nest selects that refer to the same table, in a delete statement? Ha. Fat chance.
And then there's MySQL 5.0, which supports all of the garbage in MySQL 4.1 plus a bunch of flags that let you aut
Re:Ha! let them (Score:2)
Should they have to? Most DBMS installations today are used for small-medium websites, not for huge business databases.
Not every nail needs a sledgehammer. That's why the media player I wrote years ago used SQLite. That's why my website runs MySQL.
Re:Ha! let them (Score:2)
... Capitalism... ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ask yourself (Score:2)
No, but lets be honest. (Score:2)
Ensuring Oracle's Market. (Score:2)
upgrade path to Oracle? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oracle may be looking to get enterprise clients to switch from MySQL to Oracle. IMO, I wish them the best. However, Oracle would be dumb (as would MS, IBM) to think that they could switch a small to medium site to an expensive DB server costing $1,000's per processor. The (non-)enterprise versions of Oracle and MS SQL Server are not expensive from a medium-large to large company perspective. However, try to get a small to medium sized company to dish out $5,000+ for a DB server and see how fast they look for other options.
MS is coming out with another "watered-down" version of MS SQL Server for their 2005 version. I wonder how many concurrent users can connect or what the limitations are. I am sure MS won't allow any old company to just use a watered-down SQL server free of charge. If that is the case, I would just write a connection manager to always use only the max limit of connections and save our company a crap load of cash.
IMO, there is always going to be a nice market for the OSS DB's such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. The price is hard to beat and the features/speed for both is great. IME, the only reason to really use one of the paid-for databases is for some very expensive financial type applications where you want the support/reputation. Otherwise, MySQL/PostgreSQL does the same for less. Now if I could only find a way to convince the PHB's at the fortune 500 where I work of that fact.
Re:upgrade path to Oracle? (Score:2)
Ahh, but that's where they nail you with the license. As I recall from a heated conversation with an MS licensing representative: for SQL server, if the DB services are exposed to the public internet at large, no matter what the means of indirection (web servers, app servers, your own connection manager, etc.) you are required to pay per-CPU licensing fees.
Is Oracle still Doomed? (Score:2)
Sounds like another rumor (Score:2)
The reason this didn't go through, as far as I can tell from the trenches, is because Sun suffers from the "not invented here" syndrome.
Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin (Score:4, Interesting)
Linux has commodotised the OS. MySQL and perhaps PostGRES are commodotising the Database.
All the money is upstream. Larry's customers are asking him why should they use Oracle, when MySQL et al does what they want. Larry want to sell them his other mojo, and that is where the money is. Why support the database when a bunch of other people will do it for you.
I would not be surprised to see Oracle tech ending up in MySQL, as a gift from Larry.
I too have counted, counted, weighed and measured.
Anti-Postgre ploy? (Score:2)
No shit? (Score:2)
Re:No shit? (Score:2)
Re:No shit? (Score:2)
That is FUD, pure and simple... (Score:2)
Not really. SCO's partners are jumping ship and they are paying people to be called partners and sign marketing agreements. Sort of buying press releases in exchange for SCO marketing other company's products.
OTOH, there are plenty of reasons for
It is not FUD (Score:2)
But MySQL AB does not have to join hands with the company that (with msft's help) is dedicated to destroying F/OSS. Do you remember Scox's CEO writing the US congress and declaring that the GPL was unconstitutional?
Re:It is not FUD (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't really mind it when companies sign marketing agreements of this sort if they keep it solely on the level of "we want to help our customers."
IMO, there is an issue here in that MySQL has taken this partnership well beyond this level (read their interview on Groklaw for more info).
Re:It is not FUD (Score:2)
SCO payed MySQL to support and maintain an SCO port of their software. If SCO is paying to have F/OSS software developed, then that is not destroying F/OSS.
Yes, their letter to those congressman was anti-F/OSS. But MySQL had nothing to do with that.
On the other hand, SCO has in-house developers m
Not Even Close (Score:2)
OSS has some serious problems, I better start looking at the Redmond company.
The two thoughts above are completely disjointed. Perhaps you can explain how one open source company being bought leads to the Linux kernel being sold.
Even if your relationship were to hold and the kernel were up for sale, there are several IP holders who will bar any commercial transfer of the Linux kernel to any company. The Linux kerne