Holy crap! Sun buys MySQL for $1 Bil!

[greggh]

That's $1 Billion, with a "B". I didn't see that one coming. Everybody knew MySQL was mulling over an IPO, but whoah!

http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-01/ ... 0116.1.xml

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB, an open source icon and developer of one of the world's fastest growing open source databases for approximately $1 billion in total consideration. The acquisition accelerates Sun's position in enterprise IT to now include the $15 billion database market. Today's announcement reaffirms Sun's position as the leading provider of platforms for the Web economy and its role as the largest commercial open source contributor.

Schwartz writes about the acquisition on his blog with the title "Helping Dolphins Fly"...

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/win ... re_blowing

But the biggest news of the day is... we're putting a billion dollars behind the M in LAMP. If you're an industry insider, you'll know what that means - we're acquiring MySQL AB, the company behind MySQL, the world's most popular open source database.

You'll recall I wrote about a customer event a few weeks ago, at which some of the world's most important web companies talked to us about their technology challenges. Simultaneously, we gathered together some of the largest IT shops and their CIO's, and spent the same two days (in adjoining rooms) listening to their views and directions.

Both sets of customers confirmed what we've known for years - that MySQL is by far the most popular platform on which modern developers are creating network services. From Facebook, Google and Sina.com to banks and telecommunications companies, architects looking for performance, productivity and innovation have turned to MySQL. In high schools and college campuses, at startups, at high performance computing labs and in the Global 2000. The adoption of MySQL across the globe is nothing short of breathtaking. They are the root stock from which an enormous portion of the web economy springs.

[Tsuroerusu]

That sure is one buttload of cash!!!

Anyway, I read Schwartz's blog post, and generally it seems like this is a win-win situation.

[greggh]

That sure is one buttload of cash!!!

Anyway, I read Schwartz's blog post, and generally it seems like this is a win-win situation.

I hope you're right. Sun does seem genuine about their commitment to the free software model. But I would like to see them gpl Solaris before I believe them completely.

[Tsuroerusu]

That sure is one buttload of cash!!!

Anyway, I read Schwartz's blog post, and generally it seems like this is a win-win situation.

I hope you're right. Sun does seem genuine about their commitment to the free software model. But I would like to see them gpl Solaris before I believe them completely.

When you say "gpl Solaris", what do you mean specifically? I'd love it if they used GPLv3, if they were going to GPL Solaris.

[greggh]

My preference would be v3 of course. But even v2 would help convince me that Sun's intentions are pure. By the way here's an article by someone who has similar suspicions to mine...

Extinguishing LAMP: Sun Buys MySQL http://www.computerworlduk.com/communit ... ntryid=376

By buying MySQL, Sun clearly wants to buy into that stack and success – and push out GNU/Linux, either with OpenSolaris (for those startups that Schwartz mentions), or with the full-fig Solaris for the “traditional” (= boring and conservative) enterprises.

It's a clever plan that makes sense on paper, but it remains to be seen whether LAMP will get junked in favour of SAMP. I doubt it, personally, because despite all the excellent work Sun has done in the field of open source, there remain lingering suspicions, fuelled by its insistence on retaining significant control over both Java and OpenOffice.org.

Exactly how it runs its new MySQL division, and how much it tries to turn LAMP into SAMP will determine once and for all its reputation among the wider open source community – as well as whether those billion dollars were well spent or not.

[allix]

if sun do make it proprietary, there is always postgresql .
I do as well have my suspicions.

[greggh]

if sun do make it proprietary, there is always postgresql .
I do as well have my suspicions.

If Sun does make it proprietary, then there is always MySQL too. That's the beauty of free software. The community will just continue the free fork.

[Tsuroerusu]

My preference would be v3 of course. But even v2 would help convince me that Sun's intentions are pure. By the way here's an article by someone who has similar suspicions to mine...

Of course, any version of the GPL would be good. However, I think it would make a bit bigger of an impact if the headlines were "Sun releases crown jewel under GPLv3".

Extinguishing LAMP: Sun Buys MySQL http://www.computerworlduk.com/communit ... ntryid=376

By buying MySQL, Sun clearly wants to buy into that stack and success – and push out GNU/Linux, either with OpenSolaris (for those startups that Schwartz mentions), or with the full-fig Solaris for the “traditional” (= boring and conservative) enterprises.

It's a clever plan that makes sense on paper, but it remains to be seen whether LAMP will get junked in favour of SAMP. I doubt it, personally, because despite all the excellent work Sun has done in the field of open source, there remain lingering suspicions, fuelled by its insistence on retaining significant control over both Java and OpenOffice.org.

Exactly how it runs its new MySQL division, and how much it tries to turn LAMP into SAMP will determine once and for all its reputation among the wider open source community – as well as whether those billion dollars were well spent or not.

Until they actually do something bad, I think that's a bunch of FUD to be honest.

if sun do make it proprietary, there is always postgresql .
I do as well have my suspicions.

Well, if that were to happen, like greggh said, Red Hat, Novell, Debian and others would just grab the latest GPLed version and continue it's development. But I can already tell you that it's not gonna happen.
Mr. Simon Phipps said so himself on his blog yesterday:

"For the global community of Free and open source communities because MySQL is in safe hands. Sun is committed to preserving all the strengths we've come to expect from MySQL - broad platform support, high quality engineering, frank and transparent community engagement - all under the GPL. This joining of strengths is additive, not subtractive. Just as with OpenOffice.org, Sun is aware that MySQL is a crucial FOSS community asset and we intend to be a good steward, balancing community and commercial considerations."

Source: Swimming With Dolphins

[davijordan]

The reason why sun bought mysql had nothing to do with open source in my point of view. I have always felt like ms and sun were attached at the hip. Oracle and Sun are pretty much tied together on servers. Oracle seem to be leaning to no longer supporting MSwindows. That would kill a lot of MS server business. Oracle and MS have never seem to have had a real good relationship. Mysql runs on windows servers. If Sun has mysql under their wing, then support for mysql on Windows will not stop and therefore save Windows server sales. Also Mysql could be pushed in favor of Oracle and then Oracle's market is then in the hotseat. One billion dollars? Someone sacrificed a chess piece to get the enemy's King.

[allix]

Sun have released a free sparc http://www.opensparc.net/
Sun have released open office
Sun have released as much as they can of java
I would not consider them as evil as microsoft.
Because there are business who started of as non-free , they not always going to get it right, like say red hat.
Mysql is not a free alternative to Oracle, Mysql is for medium sized projects , Oracle is for huge enterprise projects , postgresql is considered the free alternative to Oracle.

[Patrick]

I have to say that I've been pretty impressed with the direction Jonathon Schwartz has taken Sun. Things were not looking good for the company and he has really brought a new level of focus and energy. A lot of companies use the Oracle on Sun platform setup. I wonder if this is a way for Sun to stick it to Oracle?

[davijordan]

It is wonderful that sun has taken on mysql, but you do not spend one billion dollars without a reason. We use mysql on the general server for open source web apps and postgresql on the accounting web server. We actually bought Staroffice a long time ago. As for java, people sometimes have called it the new cobol. My former employer was still using visual cobol in a declining amount. Java and it's siblings. should be around for a while hopefully..

[Tsuroerusu]

Sun have released a free sparc http://www.opensparc.net/
Sun have released open office
Sun have released as much as they can of java
I would not consider them as evil as microsoft.
Because there are business who started of as non-free , they not always going to get it right, like say red hat.
Mysql is not a free alternative to Oracle, Mysql is for medium sized projects , Oracle is for huge enterprise projects , postgresql is considered the free alternative to Oracle.

You forgot to mention Solaris! Even though I think certain things in OpenSolaris could be better, Sun still deserves credit for releasing the majority of Solaris as free software (In contrast to people like IBM and HP). I'd like to see the license either changed to GPL, or have it be dual-licensed CDDL/GPL, but if I could run the OS on the hardware that I have without proprietary drivers, CDDL is acceptable to me.

Another interesting thing, the European Commission did a study on FLOSS, and among many other things found that the majority of the code in Debian 3.1 is either something that Sun has contributed, or that they own the copyrights for:

" Table 7 shows the actual code output in our sample, by size and sector.
Unsurprisingly, large firms – especially large computing equipment firms – provide the
largest share of code. This is heavily biased by the code credited to Sun Microsystems
(classified as a large computing equipment firm) and IBM (classified as software consultancy
and supply). Sun alone, in particular, is credited with 30% of the total code contribution in
our sample, which highlights one of the flaws inherent in the technique used for identifying
company code contribution, which is based on copyright credits⁴². In the case of Sun, most of
its contribution is accounted for by OpenOffice, for which Sun holds the copyright. The
entire codebase of OpenOffice is not, in fact, Sun’s sole creation, but contributors –
individuals and other firms, small and big – sign an agreement assigning Sun joint copyright
of their contributions, in order to simplify licensing and liability management43. Our
algorithms only identify Sun’s copyright message; a similar effect may bias the crediting of
lines of code towards larger firms⁴⁴.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
⁴²
Other methods, such as analysing version control information, are possible to use, but not at the scale at which
this analysis has been conducted; version control information is not available for all projects – but the
source code is, and contains copyright statements and other authorship credit claims.
⁴³
Of course, as the software is open source, contributors are not obliged to sign the copyright assignment
agreement, but the version included within the Debian collection, and measured here, is one where all
copyright holders have assigned joint copyright to Sun.
⁴⁴
In some cases, this bias may work towards smaller firms, such as MySQL, which also asks for copyright
transfer from contributors, and is classified as a medium-sized firm."

Source: Economic impact of FLOSS on innovation and competitiveness of the EU ICT sector