…Like is LAMP now LAMOP?
I’m personally aware of over 40 projects here in flyover country that are not only leveraging — but are wholly reliant on — MySQL. To make matters worse (and admittedly selfish on my part) our company uses MySQL across all our web properties. To see that megalith Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems today for $7.4 billion sent chills down my spine and left me with a nasty taste of cottonmouth.
Sure, there are a few of those Oracle fanboys out there that will say this deal means Java will get more technical attention than it’s been paid for years. Still, I liken this acquisition to a story I saw in a documentary called Flow: For the Love of Water. A segment in this movie shows corporate giant Nestle setting up a bottling plant in Michigan and stealing away millions of gallons of water from a stream running through that community, putting it in bottles, and then selling it back to local residents.
It no secret that I’m a capitalist, and that I believe that money is the root of all that is productive. My problem with what Nestle did is that they took what was already free and a universal right – clean and fresh water – and sold that under the auspices of having actually produced something. I too fear this will be the case with Oracle and MySQL.
MySQL has over 10 million installations around the world and it is the productive man’s database management system. MySQL occurs naturally and freely in nature. People take it and turn it into something meaningful. It was provided under GPL and its current form represents the untold contributions and real-world use cases of thousands and thousands of people. Now are we to expect Oracle to come, bottle it up, and sell it back to us?
This transaction only happened today, so I don’t want to be too quick to jump to conclusions. That said, you would sure think that a guy as smart as Larry Ellison would have made a community statement to appease me. I mean gosh, this guy has all the water he could ever dream of and now I find him standing over MY WATER holding a big-ass straw in his hand.
What do you think?
April 20th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
A survey conducted by Citigroup amongst major institutional investors provided the following insight on todays markets:
The favored sector is Tech and this sector has held the top position over the last 12 months. Growth stocks are also a hot item of late, the market sees the economy in a more positive view for the second half ofthe year and this should bode well for growth stocks. An additional upside of 6% is expected from current market levels to the end of the year. The majority of this optimism is due to the market rally since March, investors believe the market has bottomed. Regardless of the expected drop (approximately 20%) in earnings this year, a common consensus is the rebound in 2010 will be in the double digits. I’m certain Oracle has this information in mind prior to its acquisition.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Respectfully, are you sure you are a capitalist?? I always thought applications were created by programmers writing and working on code. I didn’t realize they could occur naturally.
Some evildoer companies also sell the air running through communities. This natural and free substance is put into balloons, paint gun canisters and scuba tanks. I guess you can sell anything in the right packaging — even “free” software.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:09 am
We’ll, I’m pretty sure I’m a capitalist. The next time you see Charlie Hoff you’ll have to ask him if he thinks I am. I appreciate your analogy of air, but I’m afraid that dismisses the underlying fact MySQL is delivered under GPL. MySQL is a balloon, a paint gun canister, and a scuba tank which helps me to manage my air, …er data. When I play paintball down in Lakeville, I don’t have to pay a licensing fee every time I want to reuse my canister. Heck, I don’t even pay to put air in it; I do that myself.
I get your point Jason, I just think it is flawed. I have no philosophical problem with companies selling repackaged goods, but I do have a problem with a company trying to monetize a packaged good I already have ownership of without an equal or greater transfer of value.
I think you may have misinterpreted my commentary as an assessment of an evildoer corporation. This is not the case. Oracle has not yet shown how they intend to play their hand. To elaborate: I have an expectation that Oracle will maintain the GPL license for MySQL, that I will have a right to freely use it under the terms for which I acquired it, and that if I so choose to use any non-GPL advances or improvements made to it by Oracle, I will pay accordingly.
Yes, I do believe that MySQL, under GPL, does occurs openly and freely in nature. In return, we use it, we advocate it, and we are stewards of it. We make entire investments around it. As I said, it’s too early to jump to conclusions. However, my fear is that Oracle will try to become a gatekeeper of it, which is exactly what Nestle did in the analogy I provided. In that case Nestle wasn’t just an evildoer from my perspective, they were found to be an evildoer by the courts.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 am
A lot of people think Larry Ellison is the devil. For that matter, a lot of people think capitalism is the devil, too. They’re wrong.
Let’s wait and see what happens. I’m not a developer, but I understand MySQL has already been forked. The founder left Sun, the acquirer of his company, because he didn’t agree with where his creation was going. Then again, he profited wildly from it, so I guess he’s a pretty successful capitalist.
So, Sun was the devil then, now Oracle is.
I say (and I’m hardly going out on a limb here) that MySQL will fork again. Oracle will sell a supported version, and a totally free version, or versions, will always be an option for those so inclined.
go capitalism!
Graeme
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 am
Go capitalism! Just don’t make Atlas shrug.