There has been much controversy lately about Sun’s acquisition by Oracle and how it will affect the future of the widely used open-source RDBMS, MySQL.

I’ve closely followed the news on this matter and also participated in some discussions about it. To my surprise, several people were somehow convinced beforehand, without any public statements, that Oracle would let MySQL evolve and be competitive, despite the fact that the open-source database is practically, in many cases, in direct competition with the database giant’s products. At this point, as a MySQL user for the last 6+ years, I would like to praise both the European Commission for being fully prepared to object to the acquisition in favour of MySQL and also Oracle for finally being open to discussions about MySQL’s future. I also acknowledge that the Commission’s stance raised awareness about the future of the open-source database and lead Oracle to make some public commitments today regarding MySQL’s near future. Read the full press release. In response, the Commission issued an announcement in which it welcomes Oracle’s commitments and confirms that it has engaged in constructive discussions with Oracle regarding the maintenance of MySQL.

This is the Corporate World. You cannot just rely on good faith and logical assumptions. Commitment is necessary. During all these years, many people have sacrificed part of their lives in order to contribute to the development of MySQL and make it the great open source project that it is today. Despite the fact that software licenses could not practically provide full protection against the rules of the Market, I am very glad that there are still other mechanisms that can fill this gap and prevent the outcome of so much collaborative effort from going up into smoke.

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Tags: Databases, Industry, MySQL, Oracle