The open source community gave a welcome to what it saw as an endorsement of its technology by one of the biggest enterprise software vendors. Moreover, the deal follows friendly references to the open source community by CEO Larry Ellison at last month’s Oracle Open World conference in San Francisco.
MySQL CEO Marten Mickos said he is pleased to see even broader industry acceptance of open source database technology. This also means that database developers now have even greater flexibility to use MySQL and Oracle in the same environment, he said. But he pointed out that MySQL’s storage engine architecture allows users to choose from any number of storage engines so they are not tied to Helsinki, Finland-based Innobase.
However, Oracle’s endorsement of open source has not so far extended to database technology, and many will see the arrival of a potential predator on their patch with less than enthusiasm.
Charles Rozwat, Oracle’s executive vice president in charge of database and middleware technology, said the company has long been a supporter of open source software such as Linux and Apache. He said Oracle intends to continue to develop the InnoDB technology and expand its commitment to open source software. Oracle has already developed and contributed an open source clustered file system to Linux. We expect to make additional contributions in the future, he said. Rozwat emphasized that InnoDB is not a standalone database product but is distributed as a part of the MySQL database. InnoDB’s contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate an extension of that relationship, he said.
Kaj Arno, MySQL’s VP community relations, clearly anticipates a nervous reaction from customers and his current blog contains points of what he describes as the don’t worry type. He points out that Innobase is a separate company, and is not a part of MySQL AB. Oracle has no ownership of MySQL AB, he said.
This response is understandable given Oracle’s past readiness to point to what it sees as the inadequacy of mySQL. A release on its web site trumpets a decision by real estate information provider Metropolitan Regional Information Systems Inc to switch from mySQL to Oracle. It quotes the company’s database administrator as saying that MySQL ultimately wasn’t up to the task.
