Oracle buys Innobase
Jim C. Nasby
--
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Aly S.P Dharshi
> Ultimately, MySQL should drop InnoDB.
This will happen eventually, there is no doubt, Sun seems like its
going to eventually integrate PostgreSQL into Solaris as a pkg most
likely:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;116679278;fp;16;fpid;0
Hopefully that should make PostgreSQL shine even more. Maybe we
may also see some @sun.com contributers, okay that maybe wishful thinking.
Cheers,
Aly.
--
Aly S.P Dharshi
aly.d...@telus.net
"A good speech is like a good dress
that's short enough to be interesting
and long enough to cover the subject"
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TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
Andreas Kretschmer
> Ultimately, MySQL should drop InnoDB.
http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?3,48400,48400#msg-48400
InnoDB is GPL. But, i'm also confused.
My guess: a fork in the future.
Regards, Andreas
--
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unintentional side effect. (Linus Torvalds)
Kaufbach, Saxony, Germany, Europe. N 51.05082°, E 13.56889°
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Scott Marlowe
(This is via Exchange Web client, I apologize in advance for any htmlitudeiness of this message)
What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a bit to include it, or rip it out.
So, now Oracle can just raise the price high enough that either the commercial version of MySQL has to go up to cover the price, or they are forced to remove it. If MySQL makes the choice to remove it from the commercial version, they will likely take it out of the GPL version as well, since they likely don't want the commercially licensed version to be the red headed step child of the GPL version, since their business plan relies on convincing people they need the commercial license as much as possible.
Jan Wieck
> Bruce Momjian <pg...@candle.pha.pa.us> schrieb:
>> Ultimately, MySQL should drop InnoDB.
>
> http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?3,48400,48400#msg-48400
>
> InnoDB is GPL. But, i'm also confused.
>
> My guess: a fork in the future.
This whole GPL forking thing is still the same as it was before. One can
only take the last version, released under GPL, and build a GPL-only
project based on it.
Oracle bought the copyright of InnoDB with the company. So if anything
goes wrong during their upcoming relicensing talk, MySQL can of course
fork off a GPL version of InnoDB, but that fork cannot be included in
their commercial version of MySQL. What value would that fork have for
them then? Using a pure GPL fork of InnoDB is in conflict with their own
licensing scheme and I don't think MySQL is in the position to say bye
to dual licensing.
To have a really good position when talking to Oracle, MySQL will need
to brush up on the BDB support, and that pretty quick.
Jan
--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
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TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
Bruce Momjian
> On 10/8/2005 4:34 AM, Andreas Kretschmer wrote:
>
> > Bruce Momjian <pg...@candle.pha.pa.us> schrieb:
> >> Ultimately, MySQL should drop InnoDB.
> >
> > http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?3,48400,48400#msg-48400
> >
> > InnoDB is GPL. But, i'm also confused.
> >
> > My guess: a fork in the future.
>
> This whole GPL forking thing is still the same as it was before. One can
> only take the last version, released under GPL, and build a GPL-only
> project based on it.
>
> Oracle bought the copyright of InnoDB with the company. So if anything
> goes wrong during their upcoming relicensing talk, MySQL can of course
> fork off a GPL version of InnoDB, but that fork cannot be included in
> their commercial version of MySQL. What value would that fork have for
> them then? Using a pure GPL fork of InnoDB is in conflict with their own
> licensing scheme and I don't think MySQL is in the position to say bye
> to dual licensing.
>
> To have a really good position when talking to Oracle, MySQL will need
> to brush up on the BDB support, and that pretty quick.
What about the patents InnoDB might hold? It would be easier to enforce
a patent based on the fact that they are using code actually developed
by the patent holder.
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
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+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
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Jan Wieck
> Jan Wieck wrote:
>> To have a really good position when talking to Oracle, MySQL will need
>> to brush up on the BDB support, and that pretty quick.
>
> What about the patents InnoDB might hold? It would be easier to enforce
> a patent based on the fact that they are using code actually developed
> by the patent holder.
That too.
What strikes me a little odd is how brief the responses from the MySQL
side are. Marten Mickos welcomes them, does some 2 sentence handwaving
about licensing and the glorious freedom of open source, and then the
rest of the statement is the usual blah blah about MySQL that you find
in every other press release.
It almost seems as if MySQL wasn't exactly prepared for this deal to
come through - or worse, that they are surprised about it. Although I
can't believe they wouldn't have known about it in advance.
Jan
--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
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---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
John Dean
That is terrific news being a former employee of MySQL - Oracle buys
Innobase. I was never a fan of MySQL, personally but when Marten Mikos and
the rest of the business wonks joined the Company I knew then it was time
to get out. I met the author of Innobase once at the first MySQL employees
meeting. I was asked what for an opinion on Heikki Tuuri. I came straight
to point and told Monty and David (Axmark) that Heikki Tuuri can not be
trusted. It seems I was right. Mr Tuuri has no interest in supporting the
OS commumity. His only interest is in making money. My gut feeling now is
that eventually Oracle will buy off Innobase lock stock and barell Then
Innonbase will get consigned to File 13. I now see MySQL heading for a long
slow death; it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people :) Thank God for
PostreSQL
---
Regards
John Dean,
co-author of Rekall,
the only alternative
to MS Access
Ned Lilly
> To have a really good position when talking to Oracle, MySQL will need
> to brush up on the BDB support, and that pretty quick.
Maybe Oracle will buy Sleepycat too, and foreclose that option ;-)
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TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
match
Marc G. Fournier
> On 10/8/2005 12:13 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> Jan Wieck wrote:
>>> To have a really good position when talking to Oracle, MySQL will need to
>>> brush up on the BDB support, and that pretty quick.
>>
>> What about the patents InnoDB might hold? It would be easier to enforce
>> a patent based on the fact that they are using code actually developed
>> by the patent holder.
>
> That too.
>
> What strikes me a little odd is how brief the responses from the MySQL side
> are. Marten Mickos welcomes them, does some 2 sentence handwaving about
> licensing and the glorious freedom of open source, and then the rest of the
> statement is the usual blah blah about MySQL that you find in every other
> press release.
>
> It almost seems as if MySQL wasn't exactly prepared for this deal to come
> through - or worse, that they are surprised about it. Although I can't
> believe they wouldn't have known about it in advance.
Or, they knew about it and have some sort of contigency plan already in
place for when the license does expire ... ?
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
fe...@crowfix.com
> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> bit to include it, or rip it out.
I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
What am I missing?
--
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / fe...@crowfix.com
GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E 6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o
Martín Marqués
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
> > What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> > the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> > commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> > code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> > version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> > bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
>
> What am I missing?
They can't enforce a commercial licence over a GPL aplication.
--
select 'mmarques' || '@' || 'unl.edu.ar' AS email;
---------------------------------------------------------
Martín Marqués | Programador, DBA
Centro de Telemática | Administrador
Universidad Nacional
del Litoral
---------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Terenzio
On Oct 8, 2005, at 5:11 PM, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
MySQL owns their code so they can release it with whatever license they
want.
Since they don't own the Innodb code they can't include it in a
commercially licensed product.
Jim C. Nasby
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
> > What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> > the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> > commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> > code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> > version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> > bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
>
> What am I missing?
MySQL isn't GPL, it's a modified GPL. But the real issue is that they
can't use the GPL licensed InnoDB in their commercial product. They have
to obtain a commercial license for that. And I suspect Oracle's going to
want more than they can afford for that license.
Though AFAIK there wouldn't be anything illegal about someone with a
commercial license of MySQL using the GPL'd version of InnoDB... but of
course if they did that they'd have GPL'd software again, so no reason
to pay for the commercial license of MySQL.
This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
actually hurt the open-source community.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jna...@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
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Tom Lane
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
> What am I missing?
MySQL AB wants to make money by selling non-GPL versions of MySQL.
They can certainly dual-license MySQL itself, because they own it
outright, but they could not ship InnoDB as part of a non-GPL-license
MySQL sale without InnoDB's (and now Oracle's) permission. So they've
got a financial problem with this.
regards, tom lane
Mitch Pirtle
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
They can only do the GPL stuff in the GPL-licensed MySQL; and they
cannot incorporate someone else's GPL works in a proprietary (non-GPL)
commercial release.
This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
commercial MySQL.
-- Mitch
Mitch Pirtle
>
> This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
> commercial MySQL.
For that matter, I'm not sure they can release MySQL under a
commercial license while incorporating 3rd party GPL works, without
the express permission of the copyright holders for those included
works.
Whatever deal they used to have just got changed, that's for sure.
-- Mitch
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Jason Earl
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
>> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
>> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
>> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
>> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
>> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
>> bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all
> the GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
Yes, that is correct, MySQL can still distribute a GPLed version of
MySQL that includes InnoDB no matter what Oracle might do. However,
MySQL AB's current business strategy relies heavily on being able to
sell MySQL under a commercial license. If Oracle changes the deal
that MySQL AB has with InnoBase then it will be impossible for MySQL
AB to sell a version of MySQL with support for InnoDB tables under a
commercial license. All of MySQL's fancy new features revolve around
the far more capable InnoDB tables. Without that table type MySQL
reverts right back to the toy it was at version 3.2. MyISAM tables
lack ACID transactions, row level locking, hot backup ability, and
basically everything else you would want out of a database.
Oracle now has MySQL AB over a barrel. I imagine that when it comes
time to renegotiate the InnoBase license next year that the balance of
power in that relationship will shift dramatically.
> What am I missing?
What you are missing is that MySQL AB the company and MySQL the
database are two different things. MySQL the database will still be
distributable under the GPL, but even MySQL AB isn't going to be able
to distribute MySQL with the InnoDB table type under anything but the
GPL if Oracle yanks MySQL AB's license. Of course, it's entirely
possible that Oracle isn't planning to torpedo MySQL and that the
InnoBase/MySQL AB relationship will remain unchanged, but this news
has got to make MySQL AB's commercial customers nervous.
Jason
fe...@crowfix.com
[ many answers ]
Ahhh ... I did not realize they were selling a commercial version with
a dual license. I had thought they were selling support contracts.
I confess I find this weird too. I can't see why someone wouild want
to distribute their own private label version of MySQL, unless they
were making significant changes, and then I can't see why anyone would
want to buy such a version. But I have met many people, not just
corporate types, who think $0 = worthless, and $$ not as good as
$$$$$$, even for the exact same piece of gear.
--
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / fe...@crowfix.com
GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E 6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Chris Browne
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
>> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
>> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
>> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
>> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
>> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
>> bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
>
> What am I missing?
If they do not hold a fairly unrestricted license to *resell* InnoDB,
then MySQL AB would be unable to sell "traditional proprietary
commercial licenses" to the combination of MySQL and InnoDB, which is
the way that they actually _make money_.
Based on the comments in Oracle's press release, it appears that MySQL
AB *does* have some form of contract with InnoDB Oy Inc to resell
InnoDB, but that contract expires some time next year.
If the contract is not renewed, then MySQL AB would only be permitted
to link MySQL (tm) to InnoDB under the conditions of the GPL, which
would mean that MySQL AB could only distribute a MySQL(tm)/InnoDB(tm)
combination under the conditions of the GPL.
This would essentially *destroy* their revenue model, which is
predicated on the notion of selling people a "traditional proprietary
license" to MySQL+InnoDB on the basis that they should be fearful of
GPL-licensed software as it always forces you to release your code
"for free." (There's some truth to this, but possibly not as much as
MySQL AB would have you believe.)
--
let name="cbbrowne" and tld="cbbrowne.com" in String.concat "@" [name;tld];;
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/oses.html
Black holes are where God divided by zero.
Thomas F. O'Connell
On Oct 8, 2005, at 6:40 PM, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
> On 10/8/05, Mitch Pirtle <mitch....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
>> commercial MySQL.
>
> For that matter, I'm not sure they can release MySQL under a
> commercial license while incorporating 3rd party GPL works, without
> the express permission of the copyright holders for those included
> works.
>
> Whatever deal they used to have just got changed, that's for sure.
>
> -- Mitch
All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.
--
Thomas F. O'Connell
Co-Founder, Information Architect
Sitening, LLC
Strategic Open Source: Open Your i™
http://www.sitening.com/
110 30th Avenue North, Suite 6
Nashville, TN 37203-6320
615-469-5150
615-469-5151 (fax)
Mike Nolan
> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.
Maybe they didn't think it was necessary. In any event, they're far from
the first (or last) company to underestmate the aggressive business tactics
of Oracle, which isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
My guess is that the people at Oracle looked at the number of ISPs who
offer their customers MySQL database support and saw a market to tap.
Oracle's tried to tap the 'small database server' market before, badly.
If the folks at MySQL AB are smart, they may be considering selling out
to Oracle too, before they get left out in the cold.
Are there any lessons to be learned from this with regards to PostgreSQL?
--
Mike Nolan
Marc G. Fournier
>> All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
>> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
>> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
>> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.
>
> Maybe they didn't think it was necessary. In any event, they're far from
> the first (or last) company to underestmate the aggressive business tactics
> of Oracle, which isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
>
> My guess is that the people at Oracle looked at the number of ISPs who
> offer their customers MySQL database support and saw a market to tap.
> Oracle's tried to tap the 'small database server' market before, badly.
>
> If the folks at MySQL AB are smart, they may be considering selling out
> to Oracle too, before they get left out in the cold.
>
> Are there any lessons to be learned from this with regards to PostgreSQL?
IMHO, not really ... nobody *owes* the PostgreSQL code base, and we aren't
reliant on any third parties for key parts of the server, so Oracle would
essentially have to go after the commercial vendors themselves, and even
going after them wouldn't buy them *that* much, I wouldn't think ...
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
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Jason Earl
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 02:11:54PM -0700, fe...@crowfix.com wrote:
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
> [ many answers ]
>
> Ahhh ... I did not realize they were selling a commercial version with
> a dual license. I had thought they were selling support contracts.
>
> I confess I find this weird too. I can't see why someone wouild
> want to distribute their own private label version of MySQL, unless
> they were making significant changes, and then I can't see why
> anyone would want to buy such a version. But I have met many
> people, not just corporate types, who think $0 = worthless, and $$
> not as good as $$$$$$, even for the exact same piece of gear.
That's part of the reason that MySQL AB went around to all of the
MySQL database adaptor guys and hired them and changed the license on
them to the GPL. There were lots of people that wanted to include a
database with their software and LGPLed drivers let them do that even
if the database itself was under the GPL. Now with GPLed drivers for
MySQL if you distribute your application you either need a commercial
license of MySQL or you need to GPL your application. MySQL made a
pretty penny convincing application writers that they needed a
commercial license of MySQL if their application wasn't distributed
under the GPL.
It wasn't about support contracts per se, but rather about being able
to include an inexpensive database with a commercial application. In
some ways that actually shouldn't be a problem since the drivers are
the part get gets "linked" with the commercial application, and they
are still owned by MySQL AB. However, it's going to look funny if
MySQL AB has to offer MySQL itself under the GPL in order to include
InnoDB tables and they simply sell the database drivers under a
commercial license.
Any way you look at it, there are interesting times ahead for MySQL
AB. Personally I think that it is just Karma. After years of
disinformation they are getting what they deserve.
Jason
Uwe C. Schroeder
Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK (and you're
welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong) SAPdb supports
transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case MySQL AB might be in a
position to offer the bells and whistles without InnoDB support if they work
out the deficiencies of SAPdb.
--
UC
--
Open Source Solutions 4U, LLC 2570 Fleetwood Drive
Phone: +1 650 872 2425 San Bruno, CA 94066
Cell: +1 650 302 2405 United States
Fax: +1 650 872 2417
Chris Browne
> On Oct 8, 2005, at 6:40 PM, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
>
>> On 10/8/05, Mitch Pirtle <mitch....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
>>> commercial MySQL.
>>
>> For that matter, I'm not sure they can release MySQL under a
>> commercial license while incorporating 3rd party GPL works, without
>> the express permission of the copyright holders for those included
>> works.
>>
>> Whatever deal they used to have just got changed, that's for sure.
>
> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.
It is interesting that MySQL AB did not put some option into their
original deal with InnoDB that would make it easy for them to do a
buyout of the code in case "something naughty might happen."
If I were making my product dependent on [X], I'd want to be careful
to assure myself that I could continue to have access to [X];
according to what I see in the Oracle statement, it doesn't appear as
though there was anything more specific than a contract ending some
time next year.
Mind you, it is not public what goes away in 2006. It is possible
that MySQL AB has a more-or-less perpetual license to use InnoDB as it
stands today, in which case it would be entirely possible that they
would fork the code base, and maintain the "MySQL version of InnoDB"
themselves. Continuing access to the present version would represent
a reasonable "option" for MySQL AB...
In any case, there are doubtless a few lawyers in Europe that are
pretty busy this weekend :-).
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "acm.org")
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/linuxxian.html
I just removed the instructions in MC:COMMON;LINS > which specify that
it should be installed on AI. We'll certainly miss that machine, and
probably spend the rest of our lives fixing programs that mention it.
Guy Rouillier
> I confess I find this weird too. I can't see why someone wouild want
> to distribute their own private label version of MySQL, unless they
> were making significant changes, and then I can't see why anyone
> would want to buy such a version.
The suits do this for peace of mind. They are very nervous about
entrusting corporate data to open source databases with no support. Why
else do you think companies are willing to pay Oracle $300,000 per CPU?
At 2 am if something gets corrupted, they can call Oracle and attempt to
get it fixed.
--
Guy Rouillier
Matthew Terenzio
On Oct 8, 2005, at 10:34 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>> Are there any lessons to be learned from this with regards to
>> PostgreSQL?
Like Marc said, doesn't seem to be a worry to the Postgres community .
. .
Unless this is all really an Oracle ploy to grab the competition to the
their real future fear . . . PostgreSQL X : )
Seriously though, whereas MySQL's ease of use was a draw to the
burgeoning web designers-turned-PHP codies, a lot of heavy DB users
considered and still consider Postgres the open-source alternative to
Oracle.
When I was new to DB newbie, I followed that crowd (like the OpenACS
folks) from Oracle to Postgres.
While this deal doesn't change the quality of MySQL at all yet, it
could affect the evangelizing efforts of the community. It can't help,
I wouldn't think, unless Oracle just smothers them out, which is
possible, though not probable, since the two database's customers are
so different and there is money to be made by keeping the DB alive.
A community would always remain to take up the torch, but the Postgres
community builds Postgres, while the MySQL community has a different
dynamic entirely.
Matthew Terenzio
On Oct 8, 2005, at 11:25 PM, Uwe C. Schroeder wrote:
> Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK (and
> you're
> welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong) SAPdb supports
> transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case MySQL AB might be
> in a
> position to offer the bells and whistles without InnoDB support if
> they work
> out the deficiencies of SAPdb.
Or maybe SQLite?
I was looking for some other options and saw this page. It look like
the author mistakenly calls PostgreSQL GPL'd.
http://linas.org/linux/db.html
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
Chris Browne
> Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK
> (and you're welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong)
> SAPdb supports transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case
> MySQL AB might be in a position to offer the bells and whistles
> without InnoDB support if they work out the deficiencies of SAPdb.
They did that indeed, or at least they acquired a license to SAP-DB.
(I think SAP AG retains license as well; this is akin to the way USL
sold SysV licenses to many vendors...)
The problems with Max-DB are twofold:
1. It isn't at all compatible with the "legacy" MySQL applications.
It is essentially a database system with a similar "flavour" to
Oracle version 7. That's not much similar to MySQL 3.x or 4.x.
2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
heavy learning curve.
It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
together such things as:
- It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
- Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
- I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
some of the code into C++...
Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
platforms of interest seems unlikely.
When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).
--
"cbbrowne","@","cbbrowne.com"
http://cbbrowne.com/info/linuxdistributions.html
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
Tom Lane
> When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
> features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
> available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
> minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
[ Trying to drag this thread back to something Postgres-related ;-) ]
Does anyone have a clear idea how far *we* are from being able to
support SAP?
regards, tom lane
Uwe C. Schroeder
WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I immigrated to
the US :-)
>
> Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
> much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
> platforms of interest seems unlikely.
>
> When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
> features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
> available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
> minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
>
> If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
> necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).
SAPdb (aka Adabas D) is something I worked with quite a while ago. And you're
right, the naming schemes and restrictions, as well as severe
incompatibilities with the SQL standard where one of my major reasons to drop
that database in favor of Informix (at that time) and PostgreSQL later on.
It was kind of tough to generate explanatory table names with those kind of
limitations. Nonetheless back then (maybe around 1993) Adabas D was a quite
powerful and considerably cheap alternative to anything serious at the market
- and it was easy to sell to customers (back in germany) just because this
was THE database powering SAP R/3.
But you may be right - considering what the codebase of SAPdb must look like
it's probably unlikely MySQL AB can make any considerable improvements in the
time available.
UC
--
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Phone: +1 650 872 2425 San Bruno, CA 94066
Cell: +1 650 302 2405 United States
Fax: +1 650 872 2417
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Martijn van Oosterhout
> Though AFAIK there wouldn't be anything illegal about someone with a
> commercial license of MySQL using the GPL'd version of InnoDB... but of
> course if they did that they'd have GPL'd software again, so no reason
> to pay for the commercial license of MySQL.
>
> This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
> actually hurt the open-source community.
Well now, that kind of depends on what you define as "hurt". If you
were only ever interested in the GPL version, none of this makes a whit
of difference.
If all you wanted was that your code was shared and that people who
benefitted shared also, then the GPL serves the purpose. Without the
GPL possibly neither InnoDB or MySQL would have been open-source in the
first place. (Maybe, maybe not. I'm not going to argue this point).
OTOH, if your goal is to "share the wealth" and let everyone get good
code for whatever purpose they want, then they would have chosen BSD
licence. This is what PostgreSQL does.
The political goals of the GPL are hardly secret. Some people might
consider this an example of what happens if you rely on proprietary
software models. At least we still have the code *now* (under the GPL).
Have a nice day,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kle...@svana.org> http://svana.org/kleptog/
> Patent. n. Genius is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. A patent is a
> tool for doing 5% of the work and then sitting around waiting for someone
> else to do the other 95% so you can sue them.
Jim C. Nasby
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 05:01:50PM -0500, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > Though AFAIK there wouldn't be anything illegal about someone with a
> > commercial license of MySQL using the GPL'd version of InnoDB... but of
> > course if they did that they'd have GPL'd software again, so no reason
> > to pay for the commercial license of MySQL.
> >
> > This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
> > actually hurt the open-source community.
>
> Well now, that kind of depends on what you define as "hurt". If you
> were only ever interested in the GPL version, none of this makes a whit
> of difference.
>
> If all you wanted was that your code was shared and that people who
> benefitted shared also, then the GPL serves the purpose. Without the
> GPL possibly neither InnoDB or MySQL would have been open-source in the
> first place. (Maybe, maybe not. I'm not going to argue this point).
>
> OTOH, if your goal is to "share the wealth" and let everyone get good
> code for whatever purpose they want, then they would have chosen BSD
> licence. This is what PostgreSQL does.
>
> The political goals of the GPL are hardly secret. Some people might
> consider this an example of what happens if you rely on proprietary
> software models. At least we still have the code *now* (under the GPL).
Well, consider that MySQL would probably still be trying to figure out
what a subquery was if it didn't have commercial backing from it's
parent company. Hurting that parent company is going to impact the code.
Of course, this works both ways. It used to be that Linux was definately
behind FreeBSD from a technology standpoint. After companies like IBM
have poured millions into it that's no longer the case. It's certainly
possible that these companies adopted Linux over FreeBSD because it was
GPL'd.
But at least for the database market, the GPL license seems to be a
downside for MySQL. Many commercial users would rather use a non-GPL'd
database, and pay companies for support. Those companies can then give
back to the community. So whereas MySQL only has support from MySQL AB,
PostgreSQL has support from more than a half-dozen companies (some with
very big pockets).
And since most all the code in PostgreSQL is BSD licensed, I don't think
it would be possible for Oracle to 'pull the rug out from under us' as
they appear to have just done with MySQL.
Of course this is nothing but handwaving at this point. It'll be
interesting to see where things are at 6 months from now. Maybe Oracle's
going to use InnoDB as the basis for version 11! ;P
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jna...@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Chris Browne
> On Saturday 08 October 2005 21:07, Chris Browne wrote:
>> 2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
>> heavy learning curve.
>>
>> It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
>> together such things as:
>> - It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
>> mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
>> - Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
>> pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
>> anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
>> - I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
>> some of the code into C++...
>
> WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I
> immigrated to the US :-)
I'm 1/4 German, and a couple brothers married German girls, so I'm not
trying to be mean, by any stretch.
The bad Procrustean part is the "8 character mainframe" aspect, as it
takes things that might have been mnemonic, at least to those knowing
German, and distills things down in size so as to lose even that.
It truly *was* Germans developing on MVS (or TSO or OS/360 or such)...
>> Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
>> much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
>> platforms of interest seems unlikely.
>>
>> When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
>> features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
>> available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
>> minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
>>
>> If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
>> necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).
>
> SAPdb (aka Adabas D) is something I worked with quite a while ago. And you're
> right, the naming schemes and restrictions, as well as severe
> incompatibilities with the SQL standard where one of my major reasons to drop
> that database in favor of Informix (at that time) and PostgreSQL later on.
> It was kind of tough to generate explanatory table names with those kind of
> limitations. Nonetheless back then (maybe around 1993) Adabas D was a quite
> powerful and considerably cheap alternative to anything serious at the market
> - and it was easy to sell to customers (back in germany) just because this
> was THE database powering SAP R/3.
And SAP R/3 has its own "8 character mainframe limits," often
involving somewhat Germanic things, abbreviated :-).
> But you may be right - considering what the codebase of SAPdb must
> look like it's probably unlikely MySQL AB can make any considerable
> improvements in the time available.
When Slashdot sorts of people propose "Oh, that can just be another
storage engine!", well, I'll believe it if I see someone implement the
refactoring.
In one of the recent discussions, someone proposed the thought of
MySQL AB adopting the PostgreSQL storage engine as Yet Another One Of
Their Engines. Hands up, anyone that thinks that's likely tomorrow
:-).
What would seem interesting to me would be the idea of building a
PostgreSQL front end for "Tutorial D" as an alternative to SQL. I
don't imagine that will be happening tomorrow, either. :-)
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.gultn" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/oses.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #200. "During times of peace, my Legions of
Terror will not be permitted to lie around drinking mead and eating
roast boar. Instead they will be required to obey my dietician and my
aerobics instructor." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>
Rick Morris
But much more interesting to consider, indeed.
CSN
-----------------------------------------------
If the worst happens and Oracle tries to squash
InnoDB, there may already be such an alternative out
there.
I wonder what it would take to add (and optimize)
Postgres storage engine support to MySQL? I don't know
exactly how current versions of MySQL and Postgres
maesure up performance-wise, but PgSQL seems to have
made steady progress on performance improvements.
Maybe this is a crazy idea, I don't know how
technically or legally feasible it is, but I really
like the idea of the two open-source communities
uniting to battle Oracle.
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/005490.html#comment-21233
__________________________________
Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page!
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
CSN
Yep, those were two of my very first questions too. ;)
CSN
--- "Marc G. Fournier" <scr...@postgresql.org> wrote:
>
> Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the
> equation? Why not just
> use PostgreSQL in the first place?
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking
> Services (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy
> ICQ: 7615664
>
__________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
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Marc G. Fournier
Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation? Why not just
use PostgreSQL in the first place?
On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, CSN wrote:
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Rick Morris
> Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation?
MySQL brings to the table an impressive AI interface that knows what you
really meant to do and thus does away with those pesky error messages.
After all, who wants to be told that 0000-00-00 is not a date, or that
you tried to insert a value of 70000 into a SMALLINT column?
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Jonathan Trites
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation?
>
> MySQL brings to the table an impressive AI interface that knows what you
> really meant to do and thus does away with those pesky error messages.
>
> After all, who wants to be told that 0000-00-00 is not a date, or that
> you tried to insert a value of 70000 into a SMALLINT column?
>
LOL, this is the single greatest reason I stopped using mysql for my
own stuff. I like the user management aspect better, in that each user
only sees their own databases, but that's a small annoyance (a little
"psql -l | grep <user>" largely solves that) Whoever decided that
silently truncating values and other similar things was a good idea
should be shot. Never ever ever ever ever silently do anything that
changes data you stupid bitch of a database. Either accept the data as
is or reject it and throw an error and make me do the change myself so
at least I can control it.
Brent Wood
On Sun, 9 Oct 2005, CSN wrote:
>
> Maybe this is a crazy idea, I don't know how
> technically or legally feasible it is, but I really
> like the idea of the two open-source communities
> uniting to battle Oracle.
>
Two? I haven't used Firebird, but have heard lots of positive comments
from users. Firebird/Postgres/MySQL together maybe? Or with all the
embedded SQLlite users out there, perhaps all four.... :-)
(& yes, I know there are still others)
Cheers
Brent Wood
Greg Sabino Mullane
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
> Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation? Why
> not just use PostgreSQL in the first place?
A good question. I think one answer is the MySQL name. Many open-source
advocates seem enamored of MySQL, but you can never pin them down about
exactly what it is they love so much about it. Maybe we can rebrand
PG as "MiSQL" or something. :)
The other answer may be the license: plugging PG into the MySQL system
(which is about as technically feasible trying to breed a porpoise
and an elephant) keeps MySQL GPL, which is another reason many people
like it.
- --
Greg Sabino Mullane gr...@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200510101028
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
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DfI6bse1MVYUVrW9uGl69hM=
=ose4
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Dan Armbrust
>
> The other answer may be the license: plugging PG into the MySQL system
> (which is about as technically feasible trying to breed a porpoise
> and an elephant) keeps MySQL GPL, which is another reason many people
> like it.
>
The fact that PostgreSQL is NOT released under GPL is the reason that
people like me are here - MySQL's license drove us away from them.
Their change of the driver licensing prevents us from shipping new
drivers with our applications.
GPL is a poison pill when it comes to groups like us that are trying to
develop standards (and shared code bases) that can be used by both
opensource and corporate types alike.
So keep up the good work!
Dan
--
****************************
Daniel Armbrust
Biomedical Informatics
Mayo Clinic Rochester
daniel.armbrust(at)mayo.edu
http://informatics.mayo.edu/
Welty, Richard
>Two? I haven't used Firebird, but have heard lots of positive comments
>from users. Firebird/Postgres/MySQL together maybe? Or with all the
>embedded SQLlite users out there, perhaps all four.... :-)
i can't think of a single good reason why anyone in the PostgreSQL
community would put any time or energy into helping save MySQL
AB's bacon. one of the downsides of FUD campaigns is that people
remember these things.
PostgreSQL is BSD licensed, they can take it if they want and try
and do something with it. good luck trying and all that.
richard
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
michael
Dan Armbrust <daniel.arm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The fact that PostgreSQL is NOT released under GPL is the reason that
> people like me are here - MySQL's license drove us away from them.
> Their change of the driver licensing prevents us from shipping new
> drivers with our applications.
>
> GPL is a poison pill when it comes to groups like us that are trying
> to develop standards (and shared code bases) that can be used by both
> opensource and corporate types alike.
>
> So keep up the good work!
>
> Dan
Preach it brother!
Michael
Richard_...@raytheon.com
pgsql-gen...@postgresql.org wrote on 10/09/2005 08:16:22 AM:
> >
> > This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
> > actually hurt the open-source community.
The MySQL license has been modified so that it is, IMHO, not compatible
with the GPL. The basic tenet of the GPL is that I can freely copy and
distribute, I just have to give back my contributions. MySQL cannot be
freely copied and distributed if you are going to make money.
MySQL built a business model based on this modification, not on GPL. Had
they left the GPL alone and used a consulting business model, they would
not be in this mess. The business model, the GPLing of the drivers, and
the FUD show a commercial operation parading as a FOSS advocate.
I find the discussion of FOSS RDBMS developers uniting against Oracle
strange. What are you going to hit them with? Your massive marketing
budgets? The only weapon available is the quality of the products, and
PostgreSQL is already wielding that weapon mightily.
What is Oracle after? Small DB technology? They already have rdb.
Firebird, back in the Groton Database Corporation days, was built to be
compatible with rdb. Marrying those technologies through modification of
existing gateways makes more technological sense than InnoDB.
Oracle is trying for market share, as they always do, but it appears ill
conceived. MySQL is for people who can't or won't tune and manage a DBMS.
Oracle products are just not going to fit. Both on price and complexity.
If they kill MySQL, they are just going to increase other true FOSS RDBMS
projects' market share. Power to them.
Cheers,
Rick
Welty, Richard
>Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation? Why not just
>use PostgreSQL in the first place?
really.
to my mind, the best thing the PostgreSQL community can do for the
MySQL community is provide simple, easy to use migration tools
and documentation.
cheers,
richard
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
snacktime
http://lnk.nu/prnewswire.com/4dv.pl
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jna...@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
First thing that comes to my mind is that Oracle is setting the stage to buy them out.
Mitch Pirtle
>
> A good question. I think one answer is the MySQL name. Many open-source
> advocates seem enamored of MySQL, but you can never pin them down about
> exactly what it is they love so much about it. Maybe we can rebrand
> PG as "MiSQL" or something. :)
Don't you mean "OurSQL"?
- Mitch, with an evil grin
Dann Corbit
http://www.filmsite.org/whof4.html
Valiant: Come on. Nobody's gonna drive this lousy freeway when they can take the Red Car for a nickel.
Doom: Oh, they'll drive. They'll have to. You see, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it.
I don't think Oracle has any interest in InnoDB other than to pull the rug out from under the commercial version of MySQL. Ranks right up there with MS's gutting of STAK and Sun's claim of language ownership for Java.
IMO-YMMV.
________________________________________
From: pgsql-gen...@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-gen...@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of snacktime
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 10:14 AM
To: pgsql-...@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Marc G. Fournier
Stupid question here, but how susceptible is Oracle to "monopolistic
practices", similar to what M$ is going through with the DoJ in the US?
This seems to be *very* close to the line, if it isn't over it ... no?
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Scott Marlowe
MySQL to pay them $10,000 per installation, and MySQL was paying Heiki
$100 per installation, then that would be predatory. OTOH, if they
charge the same rate, or some small incremental increase over what
innobase charges now, then I'd say no harm no foul.
Of course, knowing Oracle, they might want MySQL to pay by the CPU /
power rating, etc... Licensing could be the same basic cost it is now,
but with so much paper work and documentation so as to be a nightmare.
I'm just glad PostgreSQL isn't beholden to licensed / patented software
to get the job done...
Joshua D. Drake
>
> Stupid question here, but how susceptible is Oracle to "monopolistic
> practices", similar to what M$ is going through with the DoJ in the
> US? This seems to be *very* close to the line, if it isn't over it ...
> no?
They are not... too many competitors... MS suffers because they are 98%
of the desktop.
Oracle isn't even close to 98% of the database market.
--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
David Fetter
>
> Stupid question here, but how susceptible is Oracle to "monopolistic
> practices", similar to what M$ is going through with the DoJ in the
> US? This seems to be *very* close to the line, if it isn't over it
> ... no?
It may well be, but somebody would have sue, and then they would have
to win against Oracle. I don't think that MySQL AB has the resources
to fight such a legal action, even assuming they'd win it.
Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter da...@fetter.org http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778
Remember to vote!
Dann Corbit
Stak won the court case but still went out of business.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Fetter [mailto:da...@fetter.org]
> Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 11:17 AM
> To: Marc G. Fournier
> Cc: Dann Corbit; snacktime; pgsql-...@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase
>
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
David Fetter
> Consider what happened to Stak verse MS. Stak won the court case
> but still went out of business.
My point exactly ;)
Cheers,
D
Remember to vote!
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Chris Browne
> Stupid question here, but how susceptible is Oracle to "monopolistic
> practices", similar to what M$ is going through with the DoJ in the
> US? This seems to be *very* close to the line, if it isn't over it
> ... no?
No. The market for databases is hardly a monopoly, what with (at the
top end) DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server being actively sold alternatives
to Oracle's products.
Someone might argue that there is a problem, but there would be plenty
of counterevidence to counterargue with.
Jan Wieck
> From:
> http://www.filmsite.org/whof4.html
>
> Valiant: Come on. Nobody's gonna drive this lousy freeway when they can take the Red Car for a nickel.
> Doom: Oh, they'll drive. They'll have to. You see, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it.
>
> I don't think Oracle has any interest in InnoDB other than to pull the rug out from under the commercial version of MySQL. Ranks right up there with MS's gutting of STAK and Sun's claim of language ownership for Java.
> IMO-YMMV.
And this might not even be meant personally agains MySQL. There is this
old tit for tat between Oracle and SAP, you know? Some of that finger
wrestling lead to SAP having this other database, they don't really know
what to do with (Adabas-D AKA SAP-DB AKA MaxDB). SAP still owns the
rights to that code, but MySQL does all the maintenance and support for
it. And as I understood it, there were plans to rebuild the MaxDB
functionality in a future version of MySQL because the MaxDB code isn't
exactly maintenance friendly.
Now here is the price question: How many SAP R/3 customers would chose
that new MySQL version over Oracle while Oracle has their hand on that
drain plug Innobase?
Jan
--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanW...@Yahoo.com #
Jim C. Nasby
work you're doing? One place where MySQL AB and it's zealots likes to
beat PostgreSQL over the head is with it's list of clients. It'd be nice
to be able to say that the Mayo Clinic is using PostgreSQL.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jna...@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Terence
Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
> Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation? Why not
> just use PostgreSQL in the first place?
Simplicity. A huge user base. No one is questioning that pg is a
superior product :)
http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/marketshare/ *
*with a pinch of salt perhaps
Bruce Momjian
>
> Stupid question here, but how susceptible is Oracle to "monopolistic
> practices", similar to what M$ is going through with the DoJ in the US?
> This seems to be *very* close to the line, if it isn't over it ... no?
>
One big issue is that MS has the DOJ watching over it, as the DOJ did to
IBM when the PC came out. Oracle doesn't have that oversight, meaning
that the database market is more aggressive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
> > From:
> > http://www.filmsite.org/whof4.html
> >
> > Valiant: Come on. Nobody's gonna drive this lousy freeway when they can take the Red Car for a nickel.
> > Doom: Oh, they'll drive. They'll have to. You see, I bought the Red Car so I could dismantle it.
> >
> > I don't think Oracle has any interest in InnoDB other than to pull the rug out from under the commercial version of MySQL. Ranks right up there with MS's gutting of STAK and Sun's claim of language ownership for Java.
> > IMO-YMMV.
> > ________________________________________
> > From: pgsql-gen...@postgresql.org [mailto:pgsql-gen...@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of snacktime
> > Sent: Monday, October 10, 2005 10:14 AM
> > To: pgsql-...@postgresql.org
> > Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase
> >
> >
> > On 10/7/05, Jim C. Nasby <jna...@pervasive.com> wrote:
> > http://lnk.nu/prnewswire.com/4dv.pl
> > --
> > Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant??????jna...@pervasive.com
> > Pervasive Software?????? http://pervasive.com????work: 512-231-6117
> > vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf?????? cell: 512-569-9461
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
> >
> > First thing that comes to my mind is that Oracle is setting the stage to buy them out.
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
> >
> > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
> >
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to majo...@postgresql.org so that your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>
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Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
Bruce Momjian
> What is Oracle after? Small DB technology? They already have rdb.
> Firebird, back in the Groton Database Corporation days, was built to be
> compatible with rdb. Marrying those technologies through modification of
> existing gateways makes more technological sense than InnoDB.
>
> Oracle is trying for market share, as they always do, but it appears ill
> conceived. MySQL is for people who can't or won't tune and manage a DBMS.
> Oracle products are just not going to fit. Both on price and complexity.
> If they kill MySQL, they are just going to increase other true FOSS RDBMS
> projects' market share. Power to them.
Oracle must know that the comodity database days are coming. By
attacking MySQL they delay that time by another few quarters, perhaps.
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Bruce Momjian
> u...@oss4u.com ("Uwe C. Schroeder") writes:
> > On Saturday 08 October 2005 21:07, Chris Browne wrote:
> >> 2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
> >> heavy learning curve.
> >>
> >> It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
> >> together such things as:
> >> - It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
> >> mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
> >> - Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
> >> pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
> >> anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
> >> - I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
> >> some of the code into C++...
> >
> > WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I
> > immigrated to the US :-)
>
> I'm 1/4 German, and a couple brothers married German girls, so I'm not
> trying to be mean, by any stretch.
>
> The bad Procrustean part is the "8 character mainframe" aspect, as it
> takes things that might have been mnemonic, at least to those knowing
> German, and distills things down in size so as to lose even that.
>
> It truly *was* Germans developing on MVS (or TSO or OS/360 or such)...
Just to clarify, directory names are single letters, and file names are
numbers --- I kid you not.
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Gregory Wood
>
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>
>> Stupid question, but what does MySQL bring to the equation? Why not
>> just use PostgreSQL in the first place?
>
> Simplicity.
Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder. Which of a dozen or so
different storage engines should I use for table X? If I mix and match
these table types, how will the database behave?
Personally I find simplicity to be in adherence to the SQL standard as
closely as possible. Each database has their extensions, but every time
I use MySQL it grates my teeth how much non-standard stuff I have to
'relearn', making the experience anything *but* simple.
> A huge user base.
While I would love PostgreSQL to be more widely used, I don't think
something so ephemeral is necessarily something they "bring to the
table". Rather than shoehorn PostgreSQL into MySQL, having good
migration tools seems to be the key here. After all, which of these
widely used products were replaced, and which were expanded with outside
technology:
Lotus 1-2-3
Wordperfect
IBM PC
etc
> No one is questioning that pg is a superior product :)
As long as PostgreSQL manages to remain an active project with enough
contributors to compete on features and/or performance, it doesn't need
to attract any more attention than it already does, IMO. Owning a
company that relies on PostgreSQL I see some value in more people being
experienced with the database when it comes time to hire a DBA, but
beyond that, it only needs to be a superior product.
Of course when someone /does/ know PostgreSQL, it's usually a sign that
they have more than a passing familiarity. I wonder how many MySQL
admins are on the same level of proficiency as Windows admins due to
ubiquitity.
Gregory Wood
Robert Treat
> Richard_...@raytheon.com wrote:
> > What is Oracle after? Small DB technology? They already have rdb.
> > Firebird, back in the Groton Database Corporation days, was built to be
> > compatible with rdb. Marrying those technologies through modification of
> > existing gateways makes more technological sense than InnoDB.
> >
> > Oracle is trying for market share, as they always do, but it appears ill
> > conceived. MySQL is for people who can't or won't tune and manage a
> > DBMS. Oracle products are just not going to fit. Both on price and
> > complexity. If they kill MySQL, they are just going to increase other
> > true FOSS RDBMS projects' market share. Power to them.
>
> Oracle must know that the comodity database days are coming. By
> attacking MySQL they delay that time by another few quarters, perhaps.
I've been thinking more and more that oracle just want's leverage against
my$ql to force them to live up to thier claims that they "don't compete with
oracle". Ie. there are a few large commercial applications (think erp and
crm) that my$ql has been targeting to be able to support with 5.0 that would
compete directly with oracle (by way of giving those application vendors
leverage to use my$ql instead of oracle). Part of a future licensing
agreement might be that my$ql stay out of those markets.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
Karsten Hilbert
> On a side note, have you considered submitting a case study about the
> work you're doing? One place where MySQL AB and it's zealots likes to
> beat PostgreSQL over the head is with it's list of clients. It'd be nice
> to be able to say that the Mayo Clinic is using PostgreSQL.
You might also want to go ahead asking this guy for information:
http://www.coolheads.com/egov/opensource/topicmap/a101/author.html
He is active on several open source health software lists
that I am on.
Karsten
--
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E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346
Bruce Momjian
> Hi
>
> That is terrific news being a former employee of MySQL - Oracle buys
> Innobase. I was never a fan of MySQL, personally but when Marten Mikos and
> the rest of the business wonks joined the Company I knew then it was time
> to get out. I met the author of Innobase once at the first MySQL employees
> meeting. I was asked what for an opinion on Heikki Tuuri. I came straight
> to point and told Monty and David (Axmark) that Heikki Tuuri can not be
> trusted. It seems I was right. Mr Tuuri has no interest in supporting the
> OS commumity. His only interest is in making money. My gut feeling now is
> that eventually Oracle will buy off Innobase lock stock and barell Then
> Innonbase will get consigned to File 13. I now see MySQL heading for a long
> slow death; it couldn't happen to a nicer group of people :) Thank God for
> PostreSQL
Though some sales folks have unusual perspectives on PostgreSQL (and to
sell MySQL it seems almost to be required) most MySQL employees have
deep respect for PostgreSQL, almost admiration. At least that has been
my experience from the MySQL employees I have met at conferences.
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Philip Hallstrom
>
> We can't do much, actually. The trademark thing can be secured, but
> other than that, I see no other defenses we could use. We can't prevent
> people from being hired, and we can't guard against patent attacks.
Seems you could argue that if the success of the postgresql project is in
the hands of so few then we've got issues regardless of Oracle. Those
people could (heaven forbid) get hit by the proverbial bus. It would have
the same effect on postgresql itself. Anyway, just something to keep in
mind...
> I am willing to write up something for our web site if people think that
> would be helpful.
I think it it might be worth mentioning (in response to the
mysql/innodb/oracle issue) that there's nothing for Oracle to purchase
that would limit postgresql in the future -- that postgresql doesn't rely
on any commercially licensed code the removal of which would adversely
affect postgresql itself.
Anyway, that's my little 2 cents... :)
-philip
Gregory S. Williamson
> > Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > > Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack us it
> > > actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a threat. At
> > > this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on how
> > > exactly the attacked.
> >
> > Well, that was MySQL's reaction to it, but I think the harm far
> > outweighs the good for them. Its more like, "Oracle finds MySQL a
> > threat, what is MySQL going to do now!" We don't want that kind of
> > outcome. Also, there are ways of attacking that do not show Oracle as
> > an agreesor, like hiring PostgreSQL developers.
>
> Well, they effectively took a big chunk of MySQL's commercial technology
> away, something the'd have a harder time doing with PostgreSQL (unless
> we're violating patents).
--
Doesn't really matter if the legal issues are ultimately in one's favor, if one's erstwhile opponent has enough lawyer time ... even if you can survive the lengthy battle, it may well be a pyrrhic victory.
Not having specific assets to be tied up helps, but Oracle could then generate enough FUD it would hamper the use (and spread) of PostgreSQL. Oracle would probably not do so directly but through some 3rd party (or parties).
OTH, has PostgreSQL cost Oracle enough, or does it threaten to cost enough, to make such a venture worthwhile? In the short run it would generate a lot of unsympathetic press and some support for the project.
My $0.03 worth ... and now back to work.
Greg Williamson
Richard_...@raytheon.com
pgsql-gen...@postgresql.org wrote on 10/11/2005 09:59:16 PM:
> Jan Wieck <JanW...@Yahoo.com> writes:
> > And look at it, all Oracle would have to do is to be so open source
> > friendly that they make InnoDB GPL only. Can you imagine the confusion
> > in the MySQL fan club if Oracle releases the next GPL version of InnoDB
> > and MySQL AB announces that they ripped out InnoDB support and favor
> > something with half the feature set instead?
>
> ROTFL ... yes, you would have to give Oracle ten points out of ten for
> style, if they did it that way.
LOL, a round for the judges. Seriously, all they need to do is drop their
caveat to GPL and sell subscriptions instead of licenses. They control all
of the source, not taking copyrighted stuff from outside authors. Look but
do not touch open source. You want something? Buy a subscription. They
are convincing people to buy licenses, not much of a stretch to go to
subscriptions. That is a winning scenario for everyone, except maybe
Oracle.
Cheers,
Rick
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org
Rich Shepard
> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping PostgreSQL
> alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".
Jan,
Or, to demonstrate that it's not a monopoly. There will be two choices:
Oracle and postgres.
Rich
--
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President | Author of "Quantifying Environmental
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM) | Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic"
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863
Matthew Terenzio
him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
domain name or person.
On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:47 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jan Wieck wrote:
>
>> On 10/12/2005 6:18 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the
>>>> project with big money, would that not mean, that the project would
>>>> be a good path to earn a lot of money. So, new talented developers
>>>> could join the project and see that as a path to high salary jobs??
>>> Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate,
>>> but twisted :)
>>
>> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping
>> PostgreSQL alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".
>
> Definitely ... get new developers involved over here to 'cut their
> teeth' and then pull them over there once they are through the
> teething period :) Or, encourage them to work here wihle still in
> University, learn DB internals ...
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match
>
Bruce Momjian
> As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
> him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
> camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
> while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
> domain name or person.
Right, all these damages are temporary, which is probably why we haven't
been attacked yet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Joshua D. Drake
>Matthew Terenzio wrote:
>
>
>>As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
>>him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
>>camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
>>while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
>>domain name or person.
>>
>>
>
>Right, all these damages are temporary, which is probably why we haven't
>been attacked yet.
>
>
>
>
There are also logistical problems with attacking PostgreSQL because
nobody owns it.
MySQL was an easy target because of the way they negotiated their
business contracts
for use of Innodb.
PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
concern that I can see
is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
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Tom Lane
> As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
> him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
> camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
> while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
> domain name or person.
Yeah, I was thinking that myself: even if a hostile group managed to
obtain control of the trademark and/or domain name, they could not kill
the project. We'd just regroup under a new name --- it'd slow us down
for a bit, sure, but no more. The project name has changed once
already, remember.
The only serious threat I see on the horizon is patent issues. Again,
I don't think that could kill us over the long term --- we could surely
write our way out of any noncritical patents (see recent ARC fiasco for
a fire drill of this nature), and we ourselves are prior art with which
to defeat any patents on critical algorithms. A patent lawsuit could
certainly hurt us, if only by soaking up the time and attention of key
developers, but I don't think it could kill the project.
regards, tom lane
Bruce Momjian
Right. Though there are attacks, there are no fatal attacks. MySQL has
to make money, so they can have fatal attacks.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pg...@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Marc G. Fournier
> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
crap", is there any "reasonable time" provided to remove it? We've
already shown in the past that that isn't a big hurdle, with the ARC
stuff, so am just curiuos as to how big a thing the Patent stuff is, or
does even that fall under 'temporary setback / inconvience'?
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Joshua D. Drake
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
>> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
>
>
> Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software
> Patent crap", is there any "reasonable time" provided to remove it?
> We've already shown in the past that that isn't a big hurdle, with the
> ARC stuff, so am just curiuos as to how big a thing the Patent stuff
> is, or does even that fall under 'temporary setback / inconvience'?
Depends on them. They can request "Injunctive Relief" but they have a
whole bunch of other things they would have to get around... They are
more likely to go after
Command Prompt, Pervasive and most like EnterpriseDB than anybody.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
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PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
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---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Mike Nolan
> crap", is there any "reasonable time" provided to remove it? We've
> already shown in the past that that isn't a big hurdle, with the ARC
> stuff, so am just curiuos as to how big a thing the Patent stuff is, or
> does even that fall under 'temporary setback / inconvience'?
That may depend on what's been patented. In my opinions (and more
importantly in the eyes of more than a few intellectual property attorneys)
the patent office has granted some very dubious software patents, and a
deep pockets patent holder would probably have the upper hand wielding them.
--
Mike Nolan
Ron Mayer
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
>> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
>
>
> Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
> crap",
Personally I think it's quite unlikely Oracle would try attacking
any F/OSS project on patent grounds. They've pretty much bet
the company on Linux (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825433.html
"Within the next 5 years, half of Oracle's customers may be running
Linux, company President Charles Phillips has predicted". With
the sensitivity in the community that SCO/Baystar-and-friends created
I think that it'd be suicidal for Oracle to start any sort of
patent-vs-F/OSS war. Imagine the speculation of whether they'd
go after Linux itself next.........
My guess is that Oracle simply recognized that the Innobase guys
were solid database engineers with a product with a growing customer
base in a niche (low end databases) that Oracle didn't have a large
presence.
Therefore it made sense from both a recruiting and a
business growth opportunity to acquire them.
On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
and the proven market for those products. But rather than
harm the project, I imagine that would simply create incentives
for other talented database developers to join the project.
Joshua D. Drake
> Personally I think it's quite unlikely Oracle would try attacking
> any F/OSS project on patent grounds. They've pretty much bet
> the company on Linux (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825433.html
Linux isn't a competitor, PostgreSQL is.
> My guess is that Oracle simply recognized that the Innobase guys
> were solid database engineers with a product with a growing customer
> base in a niche (low end databases) that Oracle didn't have a large
> presence.
Oh if the world were that nice. Yes you could be correct but my very
strong opinion on this is that they did it because it can set back
MySQL for 18-24 months.
>
> Therefore it made sense from both a recruiting and a
> business growth opportunity to acquire them.
Oracle isn't interested in the 395.00 market.
>
> On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
> postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
> and the proven market for those products.
For people maybe, but they really don't need the database.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
> But rather than
> harm the project, I imagine that would simply create incentives
> for other talented database developers to join the project.
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
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---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Scott Marlowe
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >
> >> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
> >> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
> >
> >
> > Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
> > crap",
>
> Personally I think it's quite unlikely Oracle would try attacking
> any F/OSS project on patent grounds. They've pretty much bet
> the company on Linux (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825433.html
> "Within the next 5 years, half of Oracle's customers may be running
> Linux, company President Charles Phillips has predicted". With
> the sensitivity in the community that SCO/Baystar-and-friends created
> I think that it'd be suicidal for Oracle to start any sort of
> patent-vs-F/OSS war. Imagine the speculation of whether they'd
> go after Linux itself next.........
But that's the beauty of buying innobase. Oracle can attack MySQL and
still be the F/OSS hero! It's simple. Release the innodb code base
under GPL only, no commercial license. Anyone who wants it can use it,
but they have to only use it in GPL projects.
Then, MySQL has a hard decision, do they continue to make a GPL version
of MySQL with innodb and remove the innodb handler from their
commercially licensed version of MySQL, or do they pull it altogether.
If they leave it in the GPL version then they are encouraging their
customers to rexamine their usage and try to use the GPL version.
If they pull it, they encourage a fork of the code base by another group
who might want to keep innodb and doesn't mind it being all GPL.
Of course, this group could then architect a LGPL connect library on
their own, and then MySQL would be freely usable with commercial
software like it once was.
Boom, MySQL loses large amounts of their funding, and Oracle wins a
public relations coup by releasing innobase under the GPL and hosting
the project on their servers.
> My guess is that Oracle simply recognized that the Innobase guys
> were solid database engineers with a product with a growing customer
> base in a niche (low end databases) that Oracle didn't have a large
> presence.
There are, I believe, exactly ONE innobase guy, the primary developer.
Nice guy, but there are still a lot of issues to be worked out in
innodb. Hopefully, Oracle can provide the funding to make it work.
It would be great if Oracle paid to fork MySQL to a pure GPL product,
producing a new connection lib under LGPL, and hosting the whole thing
as a version of MySQL that ONLY uses innodb.
By forcing it to use one and only one table handler, they would then
focus development effort on SQL compliance, proper operation, and adding
features that work with innodb, like full text searching. Since the
basic database would retain a good amount of interoperability with the
old MySQL, this new database could easily take away a fair share of
their market. Then, Oracle could sell support contracts, not licenses,
and back them up with their rather large corporate infrastructure.
> On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
> postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
> and the proven market for those products. But rather than
> harm the project, I imagine that would simply create incentives
> for other talented database developers to join the project.
Yeah, I'd see it something like that, with the focus being on selling
consulting services for folks using PostgreSQL...
Tom Lane
> It would be great if Oracle paid to fork MySQL to a pure GPL product,
> producing a new connection lib under LGPL, and hosting the whole thing
> as a version of MySQL that ONLY uses innodb.
> By forcing it to use one and only one table handler, they would then
> focus development effort on SQL compliance, proper operation, and adding
> features that work with innodb, like full text searching. Since the
> basic database would retain a good amount of interoperability with the
> old MySQL, this new database could easily take away a fair share of
> their market. Then, Oracle could sell support contracts, not licenses,
> and back them up with their rather large corporate infrastructure.
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).
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. But with your scenario Oracle might
actually make money out of the deal, which makes it make some sense.
regards, tom lane
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Ron Mayer
>[Ron Mayer wrote]
>>...Oracle...recognized...solid database engineers with
>>a product with a growing customer base...
>>...made sense from both a recruiting and a
>>business growth opportunity to acquire them.
>
> Oracle isn't interested in the 395.00 market.
I think it's the larger MySQL customers (US Census Department, etc)
that they are interested in.
If the Census Department needs to look outside Oracle for low-end
databases, that opens the door to Access / SQL-Server / etc - which
really is a threat to Oracle.
On the other hand, if the Census Department can get all of their
database needs from Oracle, it's a much safer world for Oracle Corp.
>>On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
>>postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
>>and the proven market for those products.
>
> For people maybe, but they really don't need the database.
Not the database itself, as much as the business knowledge of
how to sell low-end databases.
MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
that appeals enough to those customers to buy it. Sure, Oracle was
probably in 90% of those places anyway - but clearly those existing
customeres saw the need for a low-end database that wasn't covered
by Oracle's existing offerings. Even if Oracle gets little revenue
from the low-end-DB-sales to those guys; if it keeps integration
between the Census Department's MySQL databases and Oracle-Expensive
working reliably, it's worth doing.
I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well
Joshua D. Drake
> MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
> include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
> Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
> with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
You do know that many of those listed above also use PostgreSQL :)
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Andrew Sullivan
> I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
> similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well
PostgreSQL support companies don't have the leverage that Oracle and
MySQL do to get their clients to "come out of the closet". There
_are_ such customer lists, but the license for PostgreSQL doesn't
entail that those customers be used as marketing fodder.
A
--
Andrew Sullivan | a...@crankycanuck.ca
"The year's penultimate month" is not in truth a good way of saying
November.
--H.W. Fowler
Jeffrey Melloy
> Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> Matthew Terenzio wrote:
>>
>>
>>> As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle
>>> hiring him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would
>>> set up camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt
>>> things for a while but the software is too important to too many to
>>> be killed by a domain name or person.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Right, all these damages are temporary, which is probably why we haven't
>> been attacked yet.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> There are also logistical problems with attacking PostgreSQL because
> nobody owns it.
> MySQL was an easy target because of the way they negotiated their
> business contracts
> for use of Innodb.
>
> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
> concern that I can see
> is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt? (As an
example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.
So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.
Jeff
Joshua D. Drake
> But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt?
Well then I would be sitting on a beach in New Zealend with an umbrella
drink :)
> (As an
> example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
> business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
> business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.
That is a farily good point but one of the beautiful things about Open
Source is that even if they bought Command Prompt, they would also have
to buy Pervasive and EnterpriseDB and GreenPlum and SRA.
And then -- by doing so they are just opening the market for a new set
of companies to start supporting PostgreSQL.
> So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
> cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
> dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.
No, Larry isn't dumb. You don't get to be the second richest man in the
world by being dumb. However he is very strategic and I don't see (at
this point) a strategic reason to attack PostgreSQL via Oracle.
PostgreSQL at this point is actually a good value add to the Oracle
proposition. In 5 years we are probably going to be a immediate direct
threat but not right now.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
>
> Jeff
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
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---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
CSN
Oracle Finds the Flaw in MySQL's Business Plan
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1869989,00.asp
"This is what Oracle says in its release: "InnoDB's
contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for
renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate
an extension of that relationship."
This is what Lubet, former Oracle sales mistress, has
to say about that: "I'm pretty sure, as an ex-Oracle
employee, that the sentence in the release about
'We'll certainly be happy to renew the contract,' that
it was written by Larry and that he was laughing out
loud as he [dictated it]."
__________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
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Thomas Beutin
> There are some articles on eweek about this:
>
> Oracle Finds the Flaw in MySQL's Business Plan
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1869989,00.asp
>
> "This is what Oracle says in its release: "InnoDB's
> contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for
> renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate
> an extension of that relationship."
>
> This is what Lubet, former Oracle sales mistress, has
> to say about that: "I'm pretty sure, as an ex-Oracle
> employee, that the sentence in the release about
> 'We'll certainly be happy to renew the contract,' that
> it was written by Larry and that he was laughing out
> loud as he [dictated it]."
safe table type of the current mysql releases, but they still "own" the
former Adabas/MaxDB/SAP-DB code with transaction safe tables. Probably
they force the "union" of mysql and SAP-DB code base to keep their
transaction competence, but this are just my €0,02...
Greetings from Berlin,
-tb
--
Windows: "Where do you want to go today?"
Linux: "Where do you want to go tomorrow?"
FreeBSD: "Are you guys coming, or what?"
Jan Wieck
> Maybe they lost the development of the know how for the only transaction
> safe table type of the current mysql releases, but they still "own" the
> former Adabas/MaxDB/SAP-DB code with transaction safe tables. Probably
> they force the "union" of mysql and SAP-DB code base to keep their
> transaction competence, but this are just my €0,02...
First, InnoDB is not the only transaction safe table type in MySQL.
Although a poor stepchild today, there is still BDB.
Second, MySQL AB does not own the MaxDB code. I never fully understood
what that contract was about, maybe someone from MySQL AB can explain
that, but to my knowledge SAP AG did not transfer the copyright.
They could also go back to NuSphere, aka Multera, aka PeerDirect and ask
what happened to the Progress storage engine Rocket.
Jan
--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanW...@Yahoo.com #
Ron Mayer
>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 01:02:00PM -0700, Ron Mayer wrote:
>>
>>>I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
>>>similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well
>>
>> PostgreSQL support companies don't have the leverage that Oracle and
>> MySQL do to get their clients to "come out of the closet". There
>> _are_ such customer lists, but the license for PostgreSQL doesn't
>> entail that those customers be used as marketing fodder.
Agreed, but I think my point still stands -- any PostgreSQL company
with such customer lists who wants to get bought by Oracle could
probably do so easily just by firing off an email to the right person.
Oracle likes sales channels into such customers; and likes
growing through acquisitions.
Heck, they bought 10 (11 counting Innobase?) companies already
during just 6 months of this year:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1861215,00.asp
" Oracle announced its 10th acquisition in six months
Tuesday at its annual OpenWorld conference in San Francisco."
And they don't even seem to care if the underlying engine
is theirs or a competitor. They probably even support
DB2 now, thanks to their Siebel, Retek, I-Flex and
PeopleSoft acquisitions.
Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>>MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
>>>include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
>>>Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
>>>with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
>>
>> You do know that many of those listed above also use PostgreSQL :)
Sure. I know that some of them (Cisco, at least) sell products
based on postgresql; and from first hand experience know another
uses it for some really big databases. I'm sure most of them
also use BDB and Access and their-own flat-files as well.
The difference is when the US Census Bureau (a heavy Oracle
user) has a many million dollar budget for databases, and requests
bids from dtabase vendors. It would be very nice for Oracle to
be able to say things like "yes, we can supply all your needs as
opposed to having to go to multiple vendors".
Whether the census department sues PostgreSQL or GPL-MySQL or BDB
internally doesn't affect Oracle much, since the dollars are
really in the high-end systems. But conceding that the Census
department needs to look elsewhere for commercial database
vendors (which opens the door for those guys with Access/SQLServer)
to meet their database needs must really hurt.
Joshua D. Drake
>>
>> This is what Lubet, former Oracle sales mistress, has
>> to say about that: "I'm pretty sure, as an ex-Oracle
>> employee, that the sentence in the release about
>> 'We'll certainly be happy to renew the contract,' that
>> it was written by Larry and that he was laughing out
>> loud as he [dictated it]."
>
> Maybe they lost the development of the know how for the only
> transaction safe table type of the current mysql releases, but they
> still "own" the former Adabas/MaxDB/SAP-DB code with transaction safe
> tables. Probably they force the "union" of mysql and SAP-DB code base
> to keep their transaction competence, but this are just my €0,02...
They do not "own" MaxDB. They license it, just like Innodb.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
>
> Greetings from Berlin,
> -tb
--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Jim C. Nasby
>
> > MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
> > include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
> > Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
> > with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
>
> You do know that many of those listed above also use PostgreSQL :)
Do we know that for sure? It'd be damn nice to be able to put that kind
of info on our website...
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jna...@pervasive.com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
Marc G. Fournier
>
>>>
>>> This is what Lubet, former Oracle sales mistress, has
>>> to say about that: "I'm pretty sure, as an ex-Oracle
>>> employee, that the sentence in the release about
>>> 'We'll certainly be happy to renew the contract,' that
>>> it was written by Larry and that he was laughing out
>>> loud as he [dictated it]."
>>
>> Maybe they lost the development of the know how for the only transaction
>> safe table type of the current mysql releases, but they still "own" the
>> former Adabas/MaxDB/SAP-DB code with transaction safe tables. Probably they
>> force the "union" of mysql and SAP-DB code base to keep their transaction
>> competence, but this are just my €0,02...
>
>
> They do not "own" MaxDB. They license it, just like Innodb.
Damn, do they ever have alot of "loose ends" ... what part, exactly,
constitutes "MySQL" vs third party add ons? :)
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Chris Travers
>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
Chris Travers
>>But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt?
>>
>>
>
>Well then I would be sitting on a beach in New Zealend with an umbrella
>drink :)
>
>
>
>> (As an
>>example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
>>business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
>>business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.
>>
>>
>
>That is a farily good point but one of the beautiful things about Open
>Source is that even if they bought Command Prompt, they would also have
>to buy Pervasive and EnterpriseDB and GreenPlum and SRA.
>
>And then -- by doing so they are just opening the market for a new set
>of companies to start supporting PostgreSQL.
>
>
>
>>So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
>>cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
>>dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.
>>
>>
>
>No, Larry isn't dumb. You don't get to be the second richest man in the
>world by being dumb. However he is very strategic and I don't see (at
>this point) a strategic reason to attack PostgreSQL via Oracle.
>
>
I don't think that PostgreSQL is really on Oracle's radar at the moment.
>PostgreSQL at this point is actually a good value add to the Oracle
>proposition. In 5 years we are probably going to be a immediate direct
>threat but not right now.
>
>
Note that it was a few years ago that MySQL first popped up on Oracle's
radar screen enough for them to add migration tools helping people move
from MySQL to Oracle. I don't see such tools available currently for
PostgreSQL to Oracle migrations at the moment. So I suspect that we are
still seen as the little guy :-) The difference is that while we have a
smaller number of large users, MySQL has a larger number of smaller
users so they technically have better market share numbers *and* they
have better plublicity.
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Chris Travers
>
>>
>>
>> They do not "own" MaxDB. They license it, just like Innodb.
>
>
> Damn, do they ever have alot of "loose ends" ... what part, exactly,
> constitutes "MySQL" vs third party add ons? :)
If MaxDB, InnoDB, and DBD engines are all licensed, then they have problems.
MyISAM? I think they do own that one....
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
Marc G. Fournier
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> They do not "own" MaxDB. They license it, just like Innodb.
>>
>>
>> Damn, do they ever have alot of "loose ends" ... what part, exactly,
>> constitutes "MySQL" vs third party add ons? :)
>
> If MaxDB, InnoDB, and DBD engines are all licensed, then they have problems.
Thank god our biggest headaches have been "can we include readline, since
its GPL?" and "we need to re-write ARC *just in case* IBM decides to
enforce their patent" :)"
----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scr...@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------