Tom Lane wrote:
That's a really interesting angle --- not only does Oracle get rid of
what they may or may not see as serious competition, but they get a
chance to make some money at the same time. I'm not convinced about the
"only one table handler" part of your story. Oracle certainly has the
resources to fix up multiple handlers if they wish, and they wouldn't
want to leave a loophole that MySQL AB could use to claim that their
version is better. The only one I'd see them dropping, in this
scenario, is BDB (unless they could buy out Sleepycat too, which is
perhaps not out of the question).
There is another possibility too... I don't really see Oracle trying to
force MySQL to be GPL-only because that would have the potential to
materially harm their own market position. Kill MySQL AB and just maybe
the community might become less MySQL AB-centric.
What is a larger possibility is to use this to contain MySQL AB. Jack
up the license fees to the point that MySQL is no longer the
super-low-cost alternative. This would also cut into MySQL's
profitability at the same time and help slow down the pace of development.
The only real downside is that I could see MySQL developing a
FirebirdSQL table handler if too much pressure is put on them. This
might actually work OK since Firebird has an embeddable engine. If they
do this then Oracle might end up with basically the personnel from the
Innobase acquisition and very little else. Of course MySQL has
progressed to the point where larger license fees might not alienate too
many customers.
I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of this,
assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to their core
business. The most they can do is force MySQL AB to waste a year or so
reimplementing something equivalent to InnoDB; which would hurt them but
it's hardly likely to kill them.
A year delay with MySQL's pace of development and track record?
But with your scenario Oracle might
actually make money out of the deal, which makes it make some sense.
I was assuming that this deal was primarily done to scare customers away
from using MySQL. The timing could not have been more deliberate--
right before 5.0 is supposed to be released. I think that the first
message was to scare business customers away from MySQL. Secondly they
may want an additional inroad into FOSS. Third, they may be after
personnel (i.e the buyout may be really a hiring bonus).
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting
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