Re: Oracle buying Sleepycat, JBoss, and

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Marc,
>
> > This is what I thought ... now, what happens if the Zend engine is pulled
> > out of PHP? Does that cripple the PHP project, or just inconvience it?
> >
> > For instance, I know if I don't download/install the Zend Optimizer, and
> > do a 'phpinfo()', it still lists the Zend Engine itself, so its part of
> > the *base* PHP build ...
>
> Actually, some of the PHP developers a couple years ago wanted to put PHP on
> Parrot and abandon the Zend Engine completely. There was a big showdown at
> PHPCon in 2003 or 2004 in which the independant developers battled it out
> with Zend and lost. I think Bruce was there, actually.

I was at PHP International 2003. I don't think that was the turning
point, but I spent most of my time with the guys who were working on the
PHP/Parrot combination, called Pint:

http://www.php-mag.net/magphpde/magphpde_article/psecom,id,729,nodeid,21.html

> So if Oracle+Zend tried to start changing the direction of PHP I think we'd
> see the direction of PHP change in short order. This might be a good thing,
> actually.
>
> On the other hand, I am worried about PDO. Currently I think both of the core
> PDO developers are working for Oracle, which could be bad news for real
> database agnosticism in the new driver. Another reason to look at Parrot.

This highlights one of our vulnerabilities. Oracle bought InnoDB to
attack MySQL, and we don't think we have a similar vulnerability.

But there is so little money made in open source that small amounts of
money (by Oracle standards) can easily gain control over companies that
have embedded themselves in open source projects. Basically, to the
extent these purchases can be used to harm MySQL, they can be used to
harm us too.

Even if these projects do fork, it helps Oracle because open source has
a fragmented offering, and Oracle sits back and say "We have stable
tools for you".

Just like InnoDB, these seem like no-brainer purchases for Oracle
because they again offer the ability to control and/or hamper open
source.

--
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