Robert Pogson

I love MySQL. It is so useful tied into a web application or networked on a LAN. The heart and soul of many institutions’ IT is tied up in their databases. Cecil Rhodes is supposed to have said (so the headstone over the door to my elementary school said), “Knowledge is Power”. Monty Widenius got more than a little power when he built up MySQL into a go-getter and then sold it to Sun Microsystems. He knew then that Sun was on shaky ground but he sold anyway. Now he wants to block the sale of MySQL to Oracle. On what basis? Competition. He claims Oracle will squash/starve/abandon MySQL so that Oracle will continue its monopoly in large business databases.

This is quite odd. MySQL is FLOSS so it can be forked and MW has done that. What is his problem? Does he want to sell something and then kill its value? Is he trying to keep open a window of opportunity for his new fork to grow? That’s OK but why cause FUD in the huge universe of users of MySQL? I would much rather see MySQL on a shelf in Oracle’s empire than in a dustbin or extended dustbin in the backrooms of M$. With Sun, it was pretty clear that MySQL was doing well but not great and Sun, while innovative and a force for good in IT, was not on a sound business basis. Oracle is and Ellison is a stalwart opponent of M$. The enemy of our enemy is our friend… We cannot all be be big and strong like M$ and Oracle but we should make sure that one doesn’t collect all the apples or we would starve. There are only a few places where Sun can go. Oracle will do. We may eventually regret that but no one has given a compelling argument why the sale to Oracle should be blocked and there are several good arguments why the sale to Oracle is a good thing. For, one, we do not see a pattern of abuse of monopoly (except in price!) by Oracle. Absorbing MySQL may help Oracle diversify as it must eventually.  MySQL certainly is a better product for SMB than Oracle. Rather than discount Oracle, they can sell the poor-man’s DBMS and create future customers for the big package. It seems a healthy plan to me.

There is also other good competition in the form of Postgresql. Monty did not create a monopoly. He cannot dictate to the world what we should do with databasery. I think the sale to Oracle should go ahead. Sun is a wonderful asset to IT. What survives the sale will be a blessing, I expect. What doesn’t may be spun off yet again. Ellison may be a wild man but he is not crazy. More FLOSS might do him some good and it will help keep M$ honest, if that is possible. An Oracle salesman may well find a customer who balks at Oracle’s stiff price. Rather than letting the customer flee to M$’s SQL, they could suggest MySQL… I like it.