Hi, In the holiday special, the posse talked about MySQL, and I believe they got some things wrong.
- Sun paid one billion dollars for MySQL, not two (http://www.sun.com/ aboutsun/pr/2008-01/sunflash.20080116.1.xml). - It wasn't the "two MySQL founders" that spoke out for and against the "MySQL takeover by Oracle". The one guy that publicly spoke out against it (http://helpmysql.org/en/theissue/customerspaythebill) is Michael (Monty) Widenius. He was indeed one of three co-founders back in 1995 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL_AB#History) and one of the two original MySQL developers in 1994 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mysql#Product_History). The guy that's for it (http://news.cnet.com/ 8301-13505_3-10370162-16.html) is Marten Mickos (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A5rten_Mickos), who became MySQL CEO in 2001. Both left Sun in February 2009. - Yes, Monty Widenius has a vested interest in MySQL going strong since his company works on a MySQL storage engine and MySQL customization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Program_Ab). Now one could argue that Marten Mickos has a vested interested in MySQL not being sold off or spun off because it may not get the "one billion plus X for increased value after two years" it should. And how would it look for the "Entrepeneur in residence" at a VC (Marten's job since Sep 2009 - http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/29/former-mysql-ceo-marten-mickos-joins-benchmark-as-entrepreneur-in-residence/) if his former company sold for one billion dollar first and then two years later got "dumped for 500 million only"? I admit, this is much less motivation then for Monty. Now for a short op-ed: I agree with Monty that it's hard to imagine why Oracle would develop the cheap MySQL to compete (more) with their cash cow Oracle DB, so of course they'll keep MySQL as the "web DB" separate from the "enterprise DB" Oracle. Sorry, no MySQL data warehouse! And they'll probably raise prices, too, like they did after they bought BEA - and that's on top of the MySQL license cost increase from MySQL/Sun (OEM license 2006 per box: $600, now $900 per box in 10 license package). However, if MySQL got spun off or bought by somebody else, it's also hard to see how that would be any better: The big three (Oracle, IBM, Microsoft) would continue to compete against it, requiring a lot of money for MySQL to stay in the fight. If IBM bought it, then it wouldn't be any different from Oracle (protecting DB2 revenue). Microsoft wouldn't probably buy it. Google may buy it just to annoy Microsoft and because they use it internally, too, so that may be your best hope.
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