Re: Oracle purchases Sleepycat - is this the "other shoe"

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Feb 2006, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> MySQL already has major funding. I don't see how it could get worse for
>> us if Oracle bought them.
>
> I think that Leonards point here is that if Oracle were to acquire them
> and market MySQL as 'the low-end alternative', that they have a huge
> marketing budget that they could bring to bear on this ... one that I
> imagine makes MySQL's look like pocket change ...
>
> Greatbridge had "major funding", and succeeded in burning it off in,
> what, 12 months?

Umm, I think MySQL has executed a little better than the late Great Bridge. I should know.

I think Bruce's point was that any Oracle-MySQL combination would just be more of the same - highly visible low-end database, not really challenging Oracle 10, single-company-directed, not really that open a development community.

Frankly, I think that would be pretty good news for PostgreSQL. It would just underscore the strengths of the PG community. Will be interesting to see if Oracle really does buy JBoss or Zend, and whether those communities fork in some way as has been widely forecast. I think the point that "it can't happen to PostgreSQL" is pretty solid.

That's not to say marketing's not extremely important for PostgreSQL. We're still the underdog in that fight, and would be more so if Oracle bought MySQL.