I hope not! I think we can safely assume that so many other web developers out there are thinking the same thing. Let’s be honest. A free database solution does not fit into Oracle’s business model very well. So would Oracle have the wear-with-all to shut down MySQL if they did buy Sun?
I’ve been hearing speculation about this happening and I had to post about it. My educated prediction? No. Why would they? Sure they could shut down one of their main competitors, but could they handle the negative press and community backlash of such a power play? Bill Gate’s and Steve Job’s together couldn’t. I’m not sure of the statistics, but I would say over 80% (There is a 67% chance that the previously mentioned percentage is incorrect, and the latter for that matter.) of all the websites you see on the net today have a MySQL backend.
So why would Oracle want to alienate all of those users? To make them upgrade to Oracle? Hah! They would only protest against the overlord that burned down their MySQL home. Oracle would only push them to competitors. What do I think is going to happen?
Simple. Use MySQL to enhance their own business model. Brand MySQL as the personal site / small business owner’s database. Slowly evolve MySQL over time so that it would be very low overhead for someone to upgrade to Oracle. By overhead, I’m talking about the learning curve/resource upgrading. Think about it.
Let’s say you own your own online business. Your business takes off and you find out that you need a more robust database to handle tracking, etc. You could look at M$ SQL or since you knew MySQL so well, upgrading to Oracle is a no brainer because there is no difference to you as the developer.
I just see that as being a much more viable alternative than shutting it down. Using MySQL as a gateway to Oracle would online enrich their business model while making the MySQL community happy and dare I say, much more willing to upgrade to MySQL’s “Big Brother”.
On a side note, I just wanted to say thank you to all my readers who helped make my Twitter Cloud Service (Twitter Tag Cloud Service) so popular. I have notice how so many of you have added it to your blogs or have used the code to do your own Cloud. I just wanted to say thanks.
April 23rd, 2009 on 4:02 pm
My guess is that they will try to blend Oracle Express and MySQL into one freely available (but not open source) product that is suitable for most websites. Then they could tackle the goal of having 95% of the worlds Internet is running on “Oracle”.
April 24th, 2009 on 9:10 am
I would be happy with that. I would rather have Oracle control the world than Microsoft.
June 1st, 2009 on 7:49 pm
I think you’re right that they’ll try and blend MySQL into an easy “upgrade” to Oracle, but I don’t see it being a benevolent process. I predict Oracle will hamper future development, subtly so as not to offend the masses outright, but surely so as to turn off any future adoptions.
This is definitely the death of MySQL. It’ll be slow and lingering, but the moment it was sold to Sun, the first nail was in the coffin.
I sure hope I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine a reason why the world’s most expensive and overhyped database company would want to continue development of a such a prolific yet low-priced competitor.