At 01:44 AM 4/24/2009, Martijn Tonies wrote:
Well, MySQL is open source, right? And the source is available? I'm sure
a team of devs will come to the rescue.
Really? What would make a group of developers wanting to develop
a -database engine- for free? Some party needs to step up and pay
those people, else you're beloved product will go no-where.
Correct. There are multi-million dollar companies using MySQL who would
lose their investment and skill set if they switched to another database.
These are the ones likely willing to fund for continued development of
MySQL, like the Firebird community who took up the development of the
Interbase fork. There is a huge interest in MySQL and no matter what
happens, it will be around for some time to come. If Oracle was smart, they
should put a lot of effort into supporting it.
Open source, yes, but "free", no way ...
When it comes to "free usuage", people can go to PostgreSQL or
Firebird, hey, some parties might even be better off, cause those
two don't need a license for commercial usuage!
I agree. They are better choices for commercial development because of the
MySQL licensing policies. But no such licenses are needed for web
development which is where MySQL dominates. I doubt MySQL AB makes a lot of
money from licenses anyway. When was the last time you saw MySQL on a desk
top? The real money is in support, just ask IBM. If Oracle dropped the
licensing restrictions on MySQL altogether and charged only for support, it
would put MySQL on many more desk tops and I feel they could profit from it
immensely. Oracle would have a high end database and a low end database and
they would end up dominating the database marketplace. It's like a
manufacturer coming out with a generic no-name product to compete with its
higher end product. It is done all the time in the food industry. They'd
rather have the customer using their generic product than lose the customer
to a competitor.
Hopefully Oracle sees it that way. Just one guy's opinion.
Mike
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