Recently in Oracle Category

Unless you've been under a rock, you know Sun is buying MySQL AB. That was news, last week. But it was also rather puzzling news, in many ways, and worth taking some time out to consider the implications.

So, for Part One of my coverage of the Sun/MySQL deal, I'm mostly going to offer a bunch of links. For example, the Yahoo! News breaking news story: Sun to buy MySQL for $1 billion. You get the basics of the deal here, but you also get some of the issues spelled out for you: Sun is a "server maker"; meaning, they're a hardware company. Other key points to consider:

• Sun expects to spread MySQL into big corporations, who already buy Sun hardware, as well as bolster existing Sun partnerships such as those with IBM and Dell.
• Sun is a software company, too, and an open source software company at that. They, like IBM, see offering open source software as a selling point for their hardware.
• MySQL is dwarfed by the competition from Oracle and Microsoft who dominate in the traditional database market, but MySQL owns the web database market, which is growing (while the more traditional market may be stagnating).

The Yahoo! article gives a pretty good precis of the situation, but you need to dig a little deeper to figure out what exactly is going on. For example, they don't say much about the extent to which Sun controls some very important pieces of software already, including Java, OpenSolaris, StarOffice, NetBeans, and more. Nor do they mention Sun's existing relationship with the other star open source DBMS project, PostgreSQL. For more about Sun, MySQL and PostgreSQL, check out Sun buys MySQL - what about PostgreSQL?, and Sun Purchasing MySQL and PostgreSQL advances from PostgreSQL.

Check back next week for my take on the implications and impact this deal with ultimately have, but in the meantime, here are some of the more interesting articles/blog entries I've found in the past few days about it:

• Ars Technica has a "breaking" story w/ some commentary: Sun targets open source LAMP stack with MySQL acquisition
• Here's the MySQL blog entry announcing the acquisition: Sun acquires MySQL
• Betsy Schiffman at Wired seems to think the deal is overpriced, in Sun Pays Up the Wazoo -- $1 Billion -- for MySQL; she cites analyst estimates of MySQL revenues being just $75-80 million, rather low for a $1 billion deal.
• Dvorak likewise doesn't mince his words; in The Sun-MySQL deal stinks he suggests the deal is horrible (for MySQL) and the only winner will be Oracle (!).
• More from MySQL blogs here Talking to MySQL Founders Monty and David on Sun
• MySQL and Sun - my thoughts from David Van Couvering

For the record, the official press releases here:

• Sun's press release, Sun Microsystems Announces Agreement to Acquire MySQL, Developer of the World's Most Popular Open Source Database
• MySQL's press release: Sun to Acquire MySQL

Did you know that Oracle has a new open source filesystem project called Btrfs? According to Oracle:

... we are facing a number of challenges with scaling to the large storage subsystems that are becoming common in today's data centers. Filesystems need to scale in their ability to address and manage large storage, and also in their ability to detect, repair and tolerate errors in the data stored on disk.

Sure, there are already plenty of filesystems for Linux, but Btrfs is important for a couple of reasons, even if, at this early stage in development, "Btrfs is not suitable for any uses other than benchmarking and review."

Number one, it's a good reminder that Oracle actually is giving back to the open source community. Check out Oracle's Open Source Software page for more about Oracle and free/open source software. And be sure to check out the list of projects hosted by Oracle.

And number two, it's a good reminder of the kind of value that a commercial/proprietary software vendor can add with open source software while not diluting the value of their own proprietary software.

Check out this Slashdot item about Red Hat's Matt Szulik saying, go ahead and take Microsoft's money and get it over with. And dittos for Oracle, apparently.

Here's Matthew Aslett's article at CBR Online, Take Microsoft's Linux money, says Red Hat.

Bravo, Red Hat, that's just the right attitude, and I'm not being sarcastic at all here: try the low-priced spread and you'll go back to Red Hat if you care about quality.

Go check out this article on Computer Business Review Online: Red Hat dismisses threat posed by Oracle and Microsoft. It's nice to get a balance from the gloom and doom purveyors (like myself, sometimes):

Red Hat Inc's executive vice president of worldwide sales, Alex Pinchev, has dismissed the impact that Oracle Corp's entry into the Linux support business could have on Red Hat, insisting Oracle does not really know what it is doing.

Snap.

As for Novell? See for yourself:

Pinchev was even more dismissive of the Novell-Microsoft deal, describing it as a non-event. "People know what it means for a company to partner with Microsoft," he said, suggesting it would not be in the best long term interests of Novell, while also dismissing the suggestion that Microsoft will ever bring a patent infringement suit against an IT user.

'Would you sue your own customers? I wouldn't and I don't believe Microsoft will ever do it," he said, while also rejecting out of hand Microsoft's attempts to do a similar deal with Red Hat. "For us the open source community is not for sale," he said. "Innovation is not for sale."

Oracle outlines the details of its indemnification program (warning: link to PDF document).

A couple of items of interest here. First, open source blogger Matt Asay made some interested points under the headng Just what is Oracle indemnifying, anyway after he read Oracle's license and then read the description of their indemnification program (see above).

Worth reading. My favorite line was the last one of Oracle's statement, "NOTE: NO CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS ARE FORMED EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY BY THIS DOCUMENT." All capitals, all italicized.

I'm certainly not a lawyer, so don't ask me what it means--ask your lawyer if you are considering Oracle's deal.