Re: [pgsql-advocacy] Oracle buys Innobase

(This is via Exchange Web client, I apologize in advance for any htmlitudeiness of this message)

What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a bit to include it, or rip it out.

So, now Oracle can just raise the price high enough that either the commercial version of MySQL has to go up to cover the price, or they are forced to remove it. If MySQL makes the choice to remove it from the commercial version, they will likely take it out of the GPL version as well, since they likely don't want the commercially licensed version to be the red headed step child of the GPL version, since their business plan relies on convincing people they need the commercial license as much as possible.

-----Original Message-----
From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org on behalf of Andreas Kretschmer
Sent: Sat 10/8/2005 3:34 AM
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase

Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> schrieb:
> Ultimately, MySQL should drop InnoDB.

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?3,48400,48400#msg-48400

InnoDB is GPL. But, i'm also confused.

My guess: a fork in the future.

Regards, Andreas
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unintentional side effect. (Linus Torvalds)
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On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:

> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> bit to include it, or rip it out.

I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.

What am I missing?

--
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
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El Sáb 08 Oct 2005 18:11, felix(at)crowfix(dot)com escribió:
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
> > What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> > the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> > commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> > code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> > version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> > bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
>
> What am I missing?

They can't enforce a commercial licence over a GPL aplication.

--
select 'mmarques' || '@' || 'unl.edu.ar' AS email;
---------------------------------------------------------
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Centro de Telemática | Administrador
Universidad Nacional
del Litoral
---------------------------------------------------------

felix(at)crowfix(dot)com writes:
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.

> What am I missing?

MySQL AB wants to make money by selling non-GPL versions of MySQL.
They can certainly dual-license MySQL itself, because they own it
outright, but they could not ship InnoDB as part of a non-GPL-license
MySQL sale without InnoDB's (and now Oracle's) permission. So they've
got a financial problem with this.

regards, tom lane

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 02:11:54PM -0700, felix(at)crowfix(dot)com wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
> > What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> > the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> > commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> > code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> > version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> > bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
>
> What am I missing?

MySQL isn't GPL, it's a modified GPL. But the real issue is that they
can't use the GPL licensed InnoDB in their commercial product. They have
to obtain a commercial license for that. And I suspect Oracle's going to
want more than they can afford for that license.

Though AFAIK there wouldn't be anything illegal about someone with a
commercial license of MySQL using the GPL'd version of InnoDB... but of
course if they did that they'd have GPL'd software again, so no reason
to pay for the commercial license of MySQL.

This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
actually hurt the open-source community.
--
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Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

On Oct 8, 2005, at 5:11 PM, felix(at)crowfix(dot)com wrote:

> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.

MySQL owns their code so they can release it with whatever license they
want.
Since they don't own the Innodb code they can't include it in a
commercially licensed product.

On 10/8/05, felix(at)crowfix(dot)com <felix(at)crowfix(dot)com> wrote:
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.

They can only do the GPL stuff in the GPL-licensed MySQL; and they
cannot incorporate someone else's GPL works in a proprietary (non-GPL)
commercial release.

This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
commercial MySQL.

-- Mitch

On 10/8/05, Mitch Pirtle <mitch(dot)pirtle(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
> commercial MySQL.

For that matter, I'm not sure they can release MySQL under a
commercial license while incorporating 3rd party GPL works, without
the express permission of the copyright holders for those included
works.

Whatever deal they used to have just got changed, that's for sure.

-- Mitch

felix(at)crowfix(dot)com writes:

> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
>> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
>> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
>> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
>> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
>> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
>> bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all
> the GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.

Yes, that is correct, MySQL can still distribute a GPLed version of
MySQL that includes InnoDB no matter what Oracle might do. However,
MySQL AB's current business strategy relies heavily on being able to
sell MySQL under a commercial license. If Oracle changes the deal
that MySQL AB has with InnoBase then it will be impossible for MySQL
AB to sell a version of MySQL with support for InnoDB tables under a
commercial license. All of MySQL's fancy new features revolve around
the far more capable InnoDB tables. Without that table type MySQL
reverts right back to the toy it was at version 3.2. MyISAM tables
lack ACID transactions, row level locking, hot backup ability, and
basically everything else you would want out of a database.

Oracle now has MySQL AB over a barrel. I imagine that when it comes
time to renegotiate the InnoBase license next year that the balance of
power in that relationship will shift dramatically.

> What am I missing?

What you are missing is that MySQL AB the company and MySQL the
database are two different things. MySQL the database will still be
distributable under the GPL, but even MySQL AB isn't going to be able
to distribute MySQL with the InnoDB table type under anything but the
GPL if Oracle yanks MySQL AB's license. Of course, it's entirely
possible that Oracle isn't planning to torpedo MySQL and that the
InnoBase/MySQL AB relationship will remain unchanged, but this news
has got to make MySQL AB's commercial customers nervous.

Jason

felix(at)crowfix(dot)com writes:
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>
>> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
>> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
>> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
>> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
>> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
>> bit to include it, or rip it out.
>
> I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
>
> What am I missing?

If they do not hold a fairly unrestricted license to *resell* InnoDB,
then MySQL AB would be unable to sell "traditional proprietary
commercial licenses" to the combination of MySQL and InnoDB, which is
the way that they actually _make money_.

Based on the comments in Oracle's press release, it appears that MySQL
AB *does* have some form of contract with InnoDB Oy Inc to resell
InnoDB, but that contract expires some time next year.

If the contract is not renewed, then MySQL AB would only be permitted
to link MySQL (tm) to InnoDB under the conditions of the GPL, which
would mean that MySQL AB could only distribute a MySQL(tm)/InnoDB(tm)
combination under the conditions of the GPL.

This would essentially *destroy* their revenue model, which is
predicated on the notion of selling people a "traditional proprietary
license" to MySQL+InnoDB on the basis that they should be fearful of
GPL-licensed software as it always forces you to release your code
"for free." (There's some truth to this, but possibly not as much as
MySQL AB would have you believe.)
--
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On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 02:11:54PM -0700, felix(at)crowfix(dot)com wrote:
>
> What am I missing?

[ many answers ]

Ahhh ... I did not realize they were selling a commercial version with
a dual license. I had thought they were selling support contracts.

I confess I find this weird too. I can't see why someone wouild want
to distribute their own private label version of MySQL, unless they
were making significant changes, and then I can't see why anyone would
want to buy such a version. But I have met many people, not just
corporate types, who think $0 = worthless, and $$ not as good as
$$$$$$, even for the exact same piece of gear.

--
... _._. ._ ._. . _._. ._. ___ .__ ._. . .__. ._ .. ._.
Felix Finch: scarecrow repairman & rocket surgeon / felix(at)crowfix(dot)com
GPG = E987 4493 C860 246C 3B1E 6477 7838 76E9 182E 8151 ITAR license #4933
I've found a solution to Fermat's Last Theorem but I see I've run out of room o

On Oct 8, 2005, at 6:40 PM, Mitch Pirtle wrote:

> On 10/8/05, Mitch Pirtle <mitch(dot)pirtle(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
>> commercial MySQL.
>
> For that matter, I'm not sure they can release MySQL under a
> commercial license while incorporating 3rd party GPL works, without
> the express permission of the copyright holders for those included
> works.
>
> Whatever deal they used to have just got changed, that's for sure.
>
> -- Mitch

All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.

--
Thomas F. O'Connell
Co-Founder, Information Architect
Sitening, LLC

Strategic Open Source: Open Your i™

http://www.sitening.com/
110 30th Avenue North, Suite 6
Nashville, TN 37203-6320
615-469-5150
615-469-5151 (fax)

> All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.

Maybe they didn't think it was necessary. In any event, they're far from
the first (or last) company to underestmate the aggressive business tactics
of Oracle, which isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.

My guess is that the people at Oracle looked at the number of ISPs who
offer their customers MySQL database support and saw a market to tap.
Oracle's tried to tap the 'small database server' market before, badly.

If the folks at MySQL AB are smart, they may be considering selling out
to Oracle too, before they get left out in the cold.

Are there any lessons to be learned from this with regards to PostgreSQL?
--
Mike Nolan

On 10/8/05, Thomas F. O'Connell <tfo(at)sitening(dot)com> wrote:
>
> All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.

Well, if I was Oracle and had a sneaky idea, I would *first* get
Innobase Oy under NDA, and *then* start acquisition talks...

Oracle has done enough business over the years to know that a bidding
war would have put them in a horrible position, possibly an
unrecoverable one. The somewhat muted reaction from MySQL leaves me
the impression that they were blindsided.

OTOH, this news doesn't exactly make MySQL look good, so it is also
natural for them to downplay the situation. Maybe they have had
contingency plans all along and just haven't progressed enough with
them to make any formal announcements.

-- Mitch, waiting for the movie, liking the idea of Danny DeVito
playing Larry Ellison

On Sat, 8 Oct 2005, Mike Nolan wrote:

>> All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
>> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
>> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
>> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.
>
> Maybe they didn't think it was necessary. In any event, they're far from
> the first (or last) company to underestmate the aggressive business tactics
> of Oracle, which isn't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
>
> My guess is that the people at Oracle looked at the number of ISPs who
> offer their customers MySQL database support and saw a market to tap.
> Oracle's tried to tap the 'small database server' market before, badly.
>
> If the folks at MySQL AB are smart, they may be considering selling out
> to Oracle too, before they get left out in the cold.
>
> Are there any lessons to be learned from this with regards to PostgreSQL?

IMHO, not really ... nobody *owes* the PostgreSQL code base, and we aren't
reliant on any third parties for key parts of the server, so Oracle would
essentially have to go after the commercial vendors themselves, and even
going after them wouldn't buy them *that* much, I wouldn't think ...

----
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Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

felix(at)crowfix(dot)com writes:

> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 02:11:54PM -0700, felix(at)crowfix(dot)com wrote:
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
> [ many answers ]
>
> Ahhh ... I did not realize they were selling a commercial version with
> a dual license. I had thought they were selling support contracts.
>
> I confess I find this weird too. I can't see why someone wouild
> want to distribute their own private label version of MySQL, unless
> they were making significant changes, and then I can't see why
> anyone would want to buy such a version. But I have met many
> people, not just corporate types, who think $0 = worthless, and $$
> not as good as $$$$$$, even for the exact same piece of gear.

That's part of the reason that MySQL AB went around to all of the
MySQL database adaptor guys and hired them and changed the license on
them to the GPL. There were lots of people that wanted to include a
database with their software and LGPLed drivers let them do that even
if the database itself was under the GPL. Now with GPLed drivers for
MySQL if you distribute your application you either need a commercial
license of MySQL or you need to GPL your application. MySQL made a
pretty penny convincing application writers that they needed a
commercial license of MySQL if their application wasn't distributed
under the GPL.

It wasn't about support contracts per se, but rather about being able
to include an inexpensive database with a commercial application. In
some ways that actually shouldn't be a problem since the drivers are
the part get gets "linked" with the commercial application, and they
are still owned by MySQL AB. However, it's going to look funny if
MySQL AB has to offer MySQL itself under the GPL in order to include
InnoDB tables and they simply sell the database drivers under a
commercial license.

Any way you look at it, there are interesting times ahead for MySQL
AB. Personally I think that it is just Karma. After years of
disinformation they are getting what they deserve.

Jason

On Saturday 08 October 2005 17:35, Chris Browne wrote:
> felix(at)crowfix(dot)com writes:
> > On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:31:30AM -0500, Scott Marlowe wrote:
> >> What it comes down to is this. MySQL is dual licensed. You can use
> >> the GPL version, or the commercial version. In order to sell the
> >> commercially licensed version, MySQL must have the rights to all the
> >> code in their base. So, in order for MySQL to sell a commercail
> >> version of MySQL with innodb support, they have to pay innobase a
> >> bit to include it, or rip it out.
> >
> > I don't understand. If both MySQL and Innodb are GPL licensed,
> > commercial or not should make no difference, and they can add all the
> > GPL changes they want o the last Innodb GPL release.
> >
> > What am I missing?
>
> If they do not hold a fairly unrestricted license to *resell* InnoDB,
> then MySQL AB would be unable to sell "traditional proprietary
> commercial licenses" to the combination of MySQL and InnoDB, which is
> the way that they actually _make money_.
>
> Based on the comments in Oracle's press release, it appears that MySQL
> AB *does* have some form of contract with InnoDB Oy Inc to resell
> InnoDB, but that contract expires some time next year.
>
> If the contract is not renewed, then MySQL AB would only be permitted
> to link MySQL (tm) to InnoDB under the conditions of the GPL, which
> would mean that MySQL AB could only distribute a MySQL(tm)/InnoDB(tm)
> combination under the conditions of the GPL.
>
> This would essentially *destroy* their revenue model, which is
> predicated on the notion of selling people a "traditional proprietary
> license" to MySQL+InnoDB on the basis that they should be fearful of
> GPL-licensed software as it always forces you to release your code
> "for free." (There's some truth to this, but possibly not as much as
> MySQL AB would have you believe.)

Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK (and you're
welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong) SAPdb supports
transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case MySQL AB might be in a
position to offer the bells and whistles without InnoDB support if they work
out the deficiencies of SAPdb.

--
UC

--
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Phone: +1 650 872 2425 San Bruno, CA 94066
Cell: +1 650 302 2405 United States
Fax: +1 650 872 2417

tfo(at)sitening(dot)com ("Thomas F. O'Connell") writes:
> On Oct 8, 2005, at 6:40 PM, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
>
>> On 10/8/05, Mitch Pirtle <mitch(dot)pirtle(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>
>>> This basically means that InnoDB table support must come out of the
>>> commercial MySQL.
>>
>> For that matter, I'm not sure they can release MySQL under a
>> commercial license while incorporating 3rd party GPL works, without
>> the express permission of the copyright holders for those included
>> works.
>>
>> Whatever deal they used to have just got changed, that's for sure.
>
> All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
> Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
> transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
> didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.

It is interesting that MySQL AB did not put some option into their
original deal with InnoDB that would make it easy for them to do a
buyout of the code in case "something naughty might happen."

If I were making my product dependent on [X], I'd want to be careful
to assure myself that I could continue to have access to [X];
according to what I see in the Oracle statement, it doesn't appear as
though there was anything more specific than a contract ending some
time next year.

Mind you, it is not public what goes away in 2006. It is possible
that MySQL AB has a more-or-less perpetual license to use InnoDB as it
stands today, in which case it would be entirely possible that they
would fork the code base, and maintain the "MySQL version of InnoDB"
themselves. Continuing access to the present version would represent
a reasonable "option" for MySQL AB...

In any case, there are doubtless a few lawyers in Europe that are
pretty busy this weekend :-).
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "acm.org")
http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/linuxxian.html
I just removed the instructions in MC:COMMON;LINS > which specify that
it should be installed on AI. We'll certainly miss that machine, and
probably spend the rest of our lives fixing programs that mention it.

On Oct 8, 2005, at 10:34 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>> Are there any lessons to be learned from this with regards to
>> PostgreSQL?

Like Marc said, doesn't seem to be a worry to the Postgres community .
. .

Unless this is all really an Oracle ploy to grab the competition to the
their real future fear . . . PostgreSQL X : )

Seriously though, whereas MySQL's ease of use was a draw to the
burgeoning web designers-turned-PHP codies, a lot of heavy DB users
considered and still consider Postgres the open-source alternative to
Oracle.

When I was new to DB newbie, I followed that crowd (like the OpenACS
folks) from Oracle to Postgres.

While this deal doesn't change the quality of MySQL at all yet, it
could affect the evangelizing efforts of the community. It can't help,
I wouldn't think, unless Oracle just smothers them out, which is
possible, though not probable, since the two database's customers are
so different and there is money to be made by keeping the DB alive.

A community would always remain to take up the torch, but the Postgres
community builds Postgres, while the MySQL community has a different
dynamic entirely.

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:24:29PM -0400, Mitch Pirtle wrote:

> -- Mitch, waiting for the movie, liking the idea of Danny DeVito
> playing Larry Ellison

So Frank Vincent is playing Monty? ;)

Cheers,
D
--
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phone: +1 510 893 6100 mobile: +1 415 235 3778

Remember to vote!

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 10:24:29PM -0400, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
> On 10/8/05, Thomas F. O'Connell <tfo(at)sitening(dot)com> wrote:
> >
> > All of which seems to beg the question: why did not MySQL buy
> > Innobase themselves? As far as I've read, the terms of the
> > transaction were not disclosed. I guess it's possible that MySQL
> > didn't have the financial reach to pull off the deal.
>
> Well, if I was Oracle and had a sneaky idea, I would *first* get
> Innobase Oy under NDA, and *then* start acquisition talks...
>
> Oracle has done enough business over the years to know that a bidding
> war would have put them in a horrible position, possibly an
> unrecoverable one. The somewhat muted reaction from MySQL leaves me
> the impression that they were blindsided.

How would a bidding war put them in a horrible position? Whatever they
paid for Innobase is pocket-change. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that
Larry paid more for his jet than he/Oracle paid for Innobase.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

On Oct 8, 2005, at 11:25 PM, Uwe C. Schroeder wrote:

> Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK (and
> you're
> welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong) SAPdb supports
> transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case MySQL AB might be
> in a
> position to offer the bells and whistles without InnoDB support if
> they work
> out the deficiencies of SAPdb.

Or maybe SQLite?

I was looking for some other options and saw this page. It look like
the author mistakenly calls PostgreSQL GPL'd.

http://linas.org/linux/db.html

uwe(at)oss4u(dot)com ("Uwe C. Schroeder") writes:
> Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK
> (and you're welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong)
> SAPdb supports transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case
> MySQL AB might be in a position to offer the bells and whistles
> without InnoDB support if they work out the deficiencies of SAPdb.

They did that indeed, or at least they acquired a license to SAP-DB.
(I think SAP AG retains license as well; this is akin to the way USL
sold SysV licenses to many vendors...)

The problems with Max-DB are twofold:

1. It isn't at all compatible with the "legacy" MySQL applications.

It is essentially a database system with a similar "flavour" to
Oracle version 7. That's not much similar to MySQL 3.x or 4.x.

2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
heavy learning curve.

It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
together such things as:
- It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
- Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
- I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
some of the code into C++...

Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
platforms of interest seems unlikely.

When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.

If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).
--
"cbbrowne","@","cbbrowne.com"
http://cbbrowne.com/info/linuxdistributions.html
Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Chris Browne <cbbrowne(at)acm(dot)org> writes:
> When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
> features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
> available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
> minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.

[ Trying to drag this thread back to something Postgres-related ;-) ]

Does anyone have a clear idea how far *we* are from being able to
support SAP?

regards, tom lane

On Saturday 08 October 2005 21:07, Chris Browne wrote:
> uwe(at)oss4u(dot)com ("Uwe C. Schroeder") writes:
> > Didn't MySQL AB acquire SAPdb (which was Adabas D before)? AFAIK
> > (and you're welcome to correct me since I might very well be wrong)
> > SAPdb supports transactions and foreign keys. If that's the case
> > MySQL AB might be in a position to offer the bells and whistles
> > without InnoDB support if they work out the deficiencies of SAPdb.
>
> They did that indeed, or at least they acquired a license to SAP-DB.
> (I think SAP AG retains license as well; this is akin to the way USL
> sold SysV licenses to many vendors...)
>
> The problems with Max-DB are twofold:
>
> 1. It isn't at all compatible with the "legacy" MySQL applications.
>
> It is essentially a database system with a similar "flavour" to
> Oracle version 7. That's not much similar to MySQL 3.x or 4.x.
>
> 2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
> heavy learning curve.
>
> It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
> together such things as:
> - It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
> mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
> - Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
> pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
> anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
> - I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
> some of the code into C++...

WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I immigrated to
the US :-)

>
> Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
> much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
> platforms of interest seems unlikely.
>
> When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
> features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
> available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
> minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
>
> If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
> necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).

SAPdb (aka Adabas D) is something I worked with quite a while ago. And you're
right, the naming schemes and restrictions, as well as severe
incompatibilities with the SQL standard where one of my major reasons to drop
that database in favor of Informix (at that time) and PostgreSQL later on.
It was kind of tough to generate explanatory table names with those kind of
limitations. Nonetheless back then (maybe around 1993) Adabas D was a quite
powerful and considerably cheap alternative to anything serious at the market
- and it was easy to sell to customers (back in germany) just because this
was THE database powering SAP R/3.

But you may be right - considering what the codebase of SAPdb must look like
it's probably unlikely MySQL AB can make any considerable improvements in the
time available.

UC

--
Open Source Solutions 4U, LLC 2570 Fleetwood Drive
Phone: +1 650 872 2425 San Bruno, CA 94066
Cell: +1 650 302 2405 United States
Fax: +1 650 872 2417

On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 05:01:50PM -0500, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> Though AFAIK there wouldn't be anything illegal about someone with a
> commercial license of MySQL using the GPL'd version of InnoDB... but of
> course if they did that they'd have GPL'd software again, so no reason
> to pay for the commercial license of MySQL.
>
> This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
> actually hurt the open-source community.

Well now, that kind of depends on what you define as "hurt". If you
were only ever interested in the GPL version, none of this makes a whit
of difference.

If all you wanted was that your code was shared and that people who
benefitted shared also, then the GPL serves the purpose. Without the
GPL possibly neither InnoDB or MySQL would have been open-source in the
first place. (Maybe, maybe not. I'm not going to argue this point).

OTOH, if your goal is to "share the wealth" and let everyone get good
code for whatever purpose they want, then they would have chosen BSD
licence. This is what PostgreSQL does.

The political goals of the GPL are hardly secret. Some people might
consider this an example of what happens if you rely on proprietary
software models. At least we still have the code *now* (under the GPL).

Have a nice day,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog(at)svana(dot)org> http://svana.org/kleptog/
> Patent. n. Genius is 5% inspiration and 95% perspiration. A patent is a
> tool for doing 5% of the work and then sitting around waiting for someone
> else to do the other 95% so you can sue them.

uwe(at)oss4u(dot)com ("Uwe C. Schroeder") writes:
> On Saturday 08 October 2005 21:07, Chris Browne wrote:
>> 2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
>> heavy learning curve.
>>
>> It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
>> together such things as:
>> - It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
>> mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
>> - Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
>> pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
>> anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
>> - I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
>> some of the code into C++...
>
> WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I
> immigrated to the US :-)

I'm 1/4 German, and a couple brothers married German girls, so I'm not
trying to be mean, by any stretch.

The bad Procrustean part is the "8 character mainframe" aspect, as it
takes things that might have been mnemonic, at least to those knowing
German, and distills things down in size so as to lose even that.

It truly *was* Germans developing on MVS (or TSO or OS/360 or such)...

>> Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
>> much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
>> platforms of interest seems unlikely.
>>
>> When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
>> features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
>> available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
>> minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
>>
>> If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
>> necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).
>
> SAPdb (aka Adabas D) is something I worked with quite a while ago. And you're
> right, the naming schemes and restrictions, as well as severe
> incompatibilities with the SQL standard where one of my major reasons to drop
> that database in favor of Informix (at that time) and PostgreSQL later on.
> It was kind of tough to generate explanatory table names with those kind of
> limitations. Nonetheless back then (maybe around 1993) Adabas D was a quite
> powerful and considerably cheap alternative to anything serious at the market
> - and it was easy to sell to customers (back in germany) just because this
> was THE database powering SAP R/3.

And SAP R/3 has its own "8 character mainframe limits," often
involving somewhat Germanic things, abbreviated :-).

> But you may be right - considering what the codebase of SAPdb must
> look like it's probably unlikely MySQL AB can make any considerable
> improvements in the time available.

When Slashdot sorts of people propose "Oh, that can just be another
storage engine!", well, I'll believe it if I see someone implement the
refactoring.

In one of the recent discussions, someone proposed the thought of
MySQL AB adopting the PostgreSQL storage engine as Yet Another One Of
Their Engines. Hands up, anyone that thinks that's likely tomorrow
:-).

What would seem interesting to me would be the idea of building a
PostgreSQL front end for "Tutorial D" as an alternative to SQL. I
don't imagine that will be happening tomorrow, either. :-)
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.gultn" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/oses.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #200. "During times of peace, my Legions of
Terror will not be permitted to lie around drinking mead and eating
roast boar. Instead they will be required to obey my dietician and my
aerobics instructor." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

On Sun, Oct 09, 2005 at 03:16:22PM +0200, Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 08, 2005 at 05:01:50PM -0500, Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > Though AFAIK there wouldn't be anything illegal about someone with a
> > commercial license of MySQL using the GPL'd version of InnoDB... but of
> > course if they did that they'd have GPL'd software again, so no reason
> > to pay for the commercial license of MySQL.
> >
> > This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
> > actually hurt the open-source community.
>
> Well now, that kind of depends on what you define as "hurt". If you
> were only ever interested in the GPL version, none of this makes a whit
> of difference.
>
> If all you wanted was that your code was shared and that people who
> benefitted shared also, then the GPL serves the purpose. Without the
> GPL possibly neither InnoDB or MySQL would have been open-source in the
> first place. (Maybe, maybe not. I'm not going to argue this point).
>
> OTOH, if your goal is to "share the wealth" and let everyone get good
> code for whatever purpose they want, then they would have chosen BSD
> licence. This is what PostgreSQL does.
>
> The political goals of the GPL are hardly secret. Some people might
> consider this an example of what happens if you rely on proprietary
> software models. At least we still have the code *now* (under the GPL).

Well, consider that MySQL would probably still be trying to figure out
what a subquery was if it didn't have commercial backing from it's
parent company. Hurting that parent company is going to impact the code.

Of course, this works both ways. It used to be that Linux was definately
behind FreeBSD from a technology standpoint. After companies like IBM
have poured millions into it that's no longer the case. It's certainly
possible that these companies adopted Linux over FreeBSD because it was
GPL'd.

But at least for the database market, the GPL license seems to be a
downside for MySQL. Many commercial users would rather use a non-GPL'd
database, and pay companies for support. Those companies can then give
back to the community. So whereas MySQL only has support from MySQL AB,
PostgreSQL has support from more than a half-dozen companies (some with
very big pockets).

And since most all the code in PostgreSQL is BSD licensed, I don't think
it would be possible for Oracle to 'pull the rug out from under us' as
they appear to have just done with MySQL.

Of course this is nothing but handwaving at this point. It'll be
interesting to see where things are at 6 months from now. Maybe Oracle's
going to use InnoDB as the basis for version 11! ;P
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

Chris Browne wrote:
> uwe(at)oss4u(dot)com ("Uwe C. Schroeder") writes:
>
>>On Saturday 08 October 2005 21:07, Chris Browne wrote:
>>
>>> 2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
>>> heavy learning curve.
>>>
>>> It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
>>> together such things as:
>>> - It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
>>> mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
>>> - Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
>>> pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
>>> anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
>>> - I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
>>> some of the code into C++...
>>
>>WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I
>>immigrated to the US :-)
>
>
> I'm 1/4 German, and a couple brothers married German girls, so I'm not
> trying to be mean, by any stretch.
>
> The bad Procrustean part is the "8 character mainframe" aspect, as it
> takes things that might have been mnemonic, at least to those knowing
> German, and distills things down in size so as to lose even that.
>
> It truly *was* Germans developing on MVS (or TSO or OS/360 or such)...
>
>
>>> Doing substantial revisions to it seems unlikely. Doing terribly
>>> much more than trying to keep it able to compile on a few
>>> platforms of interest seems unlikely.
>>>
>>>When they announced at OSCON that MySQL 5.0 would have all of the
>>>features essential to support SAP R/3, that fit the best theories
>>>available as to why they took on "MaxDB", namely to figure out the
>>>minimal set of additions needed to get MySQL to be able to host R/3.
>>>
>>>If that be the case, then Oracle just took about the minimal action
>>>necessary to take the wind out of their sails :-).
>>
>>SAPdb (aka Adabas D) is something I worked with quite a while ago. And you're
>>right, the naming schemes and restrictions, as well as severe
>>incompatibilities with the SQL standard where one of my major reasons to drop
>>that database in favor of Informix (at that time) and PostgreSQL later on.
>>It was kind of tough to generate explanatory table names with those kind of
>>limitations. Nonetheless back then (maybe around 1993) Adabas D was a quite
>>powerful and considerably cheap alternative to anything serious at the market
>>- and it was easy to sell to customers (back in germany) just because this
>>was THE database powering SAP R/3.
>
>
> And SAP R/3 has its own "8 character mainframe limits," often
> involving somewhat Germanic things, abbreviated :-).
>
>
>>But you may be right - considering what the codebase of SAPdb must
>>look like it's probably unlikely MySQL AB can make any considerable
>>improvements in the time available.
>
>
> When Slashdot sorts of people propose "Oh, that can just be another
> storage engine!", well, I'll believe it if I see someone implement the
> refactoring.
>
> In one of the recent discussions, someone proposed the thought of
> MySQL AB adopting the PostgreSQL storage engine as Yet Another One Of
> Their Engines. Hands up, anyone that thinks that's likely tomorrow
> :-).
>
> What would seem interesting to me would be the idea of building a
> PostgreSQL front end for "Tutorial D" as an alternative to SQL. I
> don't imagine that will be happening tomorrow, either. :-)

But much more interesting to consider, indeed.

pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org wrote on 10/09/2005 08:16:22 AM:

> >
> > This is the first time I can think of where software being GPL'd might
> > actually hurt the open-source community.

The MySQL license has been modified so that it is, IMHO, not compatible
with the GPL. The basic tenet of the GPL is that I can freely copy and
distribute, I just have to give back my contributions. MySQL cannot be
freely copied and distributed if you are going to make money.

MySQL built a business model based on this modification, not on GPL. Had
they left the GPL alone and used a consulting business model, they would
not be in this mess. The business model, the GPLing of the drivers, and
the FUD show a commercial operation parading as a FOSS advocate.

I find the discussion of FOSS RDBMS developers uniting against Oracle
strange. What are you going to hit them with? Your massive marketing
budgets? The only weapon available is the quality of the products, and
PostgreSQL is already wielding that weapon mightily.

What is Oracle after? Small DB technology? They already have rdb.
Firebird, back in the Groton Database Corporation days, was built to be
compatible with rdb. Marrying those technologies through modification of
existing gateways makes more technological sense than InnoDB.

Oracle is trying for market share, as they always do, but it appears ill
conceived. MySQL is for people who can't or won't tune and manage a DBMS.
Oracle products are just not going to fit. Both on price and complexity.
If they kill MySQL, they are just going to increase other true FOSS RDBMS
projects' market share. Power to them.

Cheers,

Rick

Richard_D_Levine(at)raytheon(dot)com wrote:
> What is Oracle after? Small DB technology? They already have rdb.
> Firebird, back in the Groton Database Corporation days, was built to be
> compatible with rdb. Marrying those technologies through modification of
> existing gateways makes more technological sense than InnoDB.
>
> Oracle is trying for market share, as they always do, but it appears ill
> conceived. MySQL is for people who can't or won't tune and manage a DBMS.
> Oracle products are just not going to fit. Both on price and complexity.
> If they kill MySQL, they are just going to increase other true FOSS RDBMS
> projects' market share. Power to them.

Oracle must know that the comodity database days are coming. By
attacking MySQL they delay that time by another few quarters, perhaps.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Chris Browne wrote:
> uwe(at)oss4u(dot)com ("Uwe C. Schroeder") writes:
> > On Saturday 08 October 2005 21:07, Chris Browne wrote:
> >> 2. The code base was pretty old, pretty creaky, and has a *really*
> >> heavy learning curve.
> >>
> >> It was pretty famous as being *really* difficult to build; throw
> >> together such things as:
> >> - It uses a custom set of build tools that were created for a
> >> mainframe environment and sorta hacked into Python
> >> - Naming conventions for files, variables, and functions combine
> >> pseudo-German with an affinity for 8 character names that are
> >> anything but mnemonic. (Think: "Germans developing on MVS.")
> >> - I seem to recall there being a Pascal translator to transform
> >> some of the code into C++...
> >
> > WOW - careful now. I'm german - but then, there's a reason why I
> > immigrated to the US :-)
>
> I'm 1/4 German, and a couple brothers married German girls, so I'm not
> trying to be mean, by any stretch.
>
> The bad Procrustean part is the "8 character mainframe" aspect, as it
> takes things that might have been mnemonic, at least to those knowing
> German, and distills things down in size so as to lose even that.
>
> It truly *was* Germans developing on MVS (or TSO or OS/360 or such)...

Just to clarify, directory names are single letters, and file names are
numbers --- I kid you not.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

On Tuesday 11 October 2005 00:49, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Richard_D_Levine(at)raytheon(dot)com wrote:
> > What is Oracle after? Small DB technology? They already have rdb.
> > Firebird, back in the Groton Database Corporation days, was built to be
> > compatible with rdb. Marrying those technologies through modification of
> > existing gateways makes more technological sense than InnoDB.
> >
> > Oracle is trying for market share, as they always do, but it appears ill
> > conceived. MySQL is for people who can't or won't tune and manage a
> > DBMS. Oracle products are just not going to fit. Both on price and
> > complexity. If they kill MySQL, they are just going to increase other
> > true FOSS RDBMS projects' market share. Power to them.
>
> Oracle must know that the comodity database days are coming. By
> attacking MySQL they delay that time by another few quarters, perhaps.

I've been thinking more and more that oracle just want's leverage against
my$ql to force them to live up to thier claims that they "don't compete with
oracle". Ie. there are a few large commercial applications (think erp and
crm) that my$ql has been targeting to be able to support with 5.0 that would
compete directly with oracle (by way of giving those application vendors
leverage to use my$ql instead of oracle). Part of a future licensing
agreement might be that my$ql stay out of those markets.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.

The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to expend money to
slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has been
attacked, we should expect to be the next target.

Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue or net
income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual

that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial statement will
eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can use that as
a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)

Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will eventually become a
commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other application
technology. However, every financial period they delay that time is
more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is worth to
slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB purchase was
worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to make the
cost of attacks higher than the benefit.

Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:

o Hiring

Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid or volunteer developers,
thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what they did
for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is what they
_don't_ do for PostgreSQL.

o Trademark

Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names. He could
be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to fail, then
suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to own the
domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it would be hard
to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in gaining
control of the domain names.

o Patents

Most technology people agree the software patent system is broken, but
it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we can
efficiently remove patent issue from our code.

There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm us, but
there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow us down,
and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There are also
possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
somewhat independent of the project.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack us it
actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a threat. At
this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on how
exactly the attacked.

On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:04:40PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
>
> The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to expend money to
> slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has been
> attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
>
> Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue or net
> income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:
>
> http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
>
> that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial statement will
> eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can use that as
> a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
>
> Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will eventually become a
> commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other application
> technology. However, every financial period they delay that time is
> more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is worth to
> slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB purchase was
> worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to make the
> cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
>
> Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
>
> o Hiring
>
> Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid or volunteer developers,
> thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
> approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
> expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what they did
> for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is what they
> _don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
>
> o Trademark
>
> Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names. He could
> be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to fail, then
> suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to own the
> domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it would be hard
> to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in gaining
> control of the domain names.
>
> o Patents
>
> Most technology people agree the software patent system is broken, but
> it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we can
> efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
>
>
> There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm us, but
> there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow us down,
> and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There are also
> possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
> somewhat independent of the project.
>
> --
> Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
> pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
> + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
> + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>

--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack us it
> actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a threat. At
> this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on how
> exactly the attacked.

Well, that was MySQL's reaction to it, but I think the harm far
outweighs the good for them. Its more like, "Oracle finds MySQL a
threat, what is MySQL going to do now!" We don't want that kind of
outcome. Also, there are ways of attacking that do not show Oracle as
an agreesor, like hiring PostgreSQL developers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:04:40PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
> >
> > The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to expend money to
> > slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has been
> > attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
> >
> > Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue or net
> > income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:
> >
> > http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
> >
> > that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial statement will
> > eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can use that as
> > a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
> >
> > Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will eventually become a
> > commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other application
> > technology. However, every financial period they delay that time is
> > more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is worth to
> > slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB purchase was
> > worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to make the
> > cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
> >
> > Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
> >
> > o Hiring
> >
> > Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid or volunteer developers,
> > thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
> > approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
> > expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what they did
> > for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is what they
> > _don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
> >
> > o Trademark
> >
> > Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names. He could
> > be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to fail, then
> > suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to own the
> > domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it would be hard
> > to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in gaining
> > control of the domain names.
> >
> > o Patents
> >
> > Most technology people agree the software patent system is broken, but
> > it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we can
> > efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
> >
> >
> > There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm us, but
> > there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow us down,
> > and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There are also
> > possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
> > somewhat independent of the project.
> >
> > --
> > Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
> > pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
> > + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
> > + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that your
> > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
> >
>
> --
> Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
> Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
> vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
>

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Here is a followup to this email. A few people asked me questions off
list, and here are my replies:

[ Comment mentioning Open Office and Mozilla have not been attacked.]

Cconsider that one thing that has restrained Microsoft (and previously
IBM) was US Department of Justice oversight. Oracle does not have such
oversight, so they are more likely to act aggressively. Basically, just
because attacks have not happened in the Linux or Open Office areas
(Microsoft territory) does not mean they will not happen in the database
area. Oracle has a history of aggressive activity, and it has shown
with MySQL now. I doubt many would have thought Oracle would have
purchased technology that MySQL depends upon before it happened.

Oracle certainly will not win, and I think they know that, but as
project leaders, we should try to be defensive to prevent attacks from
inflicting harm to the project.

[ Comment asking what we can do to protect ourselves.]

We can't do much, actually. The trademark thing can be secured, but
other than that, I see no other defenses we could use. We can't prevent
people from being hired, and we can't guard against patent attacks.

I am willing to write up something for our web site if people think that
would be helpful.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
>
> The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to expend money to
> slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has been
> attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
>
> Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue or net
> income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:
>
> http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
>
> that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial statement will
> eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can use that as
> a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
>
> Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will eventually become a
> commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other application
> technology. However, every financial period they delay that time is
> more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is worth to
> slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB purchase was
> worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to make the
> cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
>
> Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
>
> o Hiring
>
> Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid or volunteer developers,
> thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
> approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
> expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what they did
> for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is what they
> _don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
>
> o Trademark
>
> Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names. He could
> be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to fail, then
> suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to own the
> domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it would be hard
> to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in gaining
> control of the domain names.
>
> o Patents
>
> Most technology people agree the software patent system is broken, but
> it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we can
> efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
>
>
> There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm us, but
> there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow us down,
> and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There are also
> possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
> somewhat independent of the project.
>
> --
> Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
> pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
> + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
> + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that your
> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:31:06PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Jim C. Nasby wrote:
> > Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack us it
> > actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a threat. At
> > this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on how
> > exactly the attacked.
>
> Well, that was MySQL's reaction to it, but I think the harm far
> outweighs the good for them. Its more like, "Oracle finds MySQL a
> threat, what is MySQL going to do now!" We don't want that kind of
> outcome. Also, there are ways of attacking that do not show Oracle as
> an agreesor, like hiring PostgreSQL developers.

Well, they effectively took a big chunk of MySQL's commercial technology
away, something the'd have a harder time doing with PostgreSQL (unless
we're violating patents).
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:52:16PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> We can't do much, actually. The trademark thing can be secured, but
> other than that, I see no other defenses we could use. We can't prevent
> people from being hired, and we can't guard against patent attacks.

Actually, I think there's things that can be done in both cases. For
patents, we need to ensure that we're not using technology that's
covered by patents. But even so, this is really more of an issue for
commercial entities using PostgreSQL. There's not very much Oracle could
go after in the community.

As for developers, the way that can be defended against is by keeping
the developers in demand at companies that are commercializing
PostgreSQL. The way that's done is by supporting those companies so that
they're PostgreSQL operations are profitable and they have the desire to
keep their talent around. Granted, Oracle has more money laying around
than probably all current commercial ventures combined, but I would
venture to guess that most people in the community would be very
hesitant to even consider a job at Oracle.

As an ironic aside, I actually turned down a job at Oracle about 18
months ago. Before anyone worries though, it was offered by a friend and
PostgreSQL wasn't an issue at all.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

> [ Comment asking what we can do to protect ourselves.]
>
> We can't do much, actually. The trademark thing can be secured, but
> other than that, I see no other defenses we could use. We can't prevent
> people from being hired, and we can't guard against patent attacks.

Seems you could argue that if the success of the postgresql project is in
the hands of so few then we've got issues regardless of Oracle. Those
people could (heaven forbid) get hit by the proverbial bus. It would have
the same effect on postgresql itself. Anyway, just something to keep in
mind...

> I am willing to write up something for our web site if people think that
> would be helpful.

I think it it might be worth mentioning (in response to the
mysql/innodb/oracle issue) that there's nothing for Oracle to purchase
that would limit postgresql in the future -- that postgresql doesn't rely
on any commercially licensed code the removal of which would adversely
affect postgresql itself.

Anyway, that's my little 2 cents... :)

-philip

On 10/11/2005 6:31 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Jim C. Nasby wrote:
>> Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack us it
>> actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a threat. At
>> this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on how
>> exactly the attacked.
>
> Well, that was MySQL's reaction to it, but I think the harm far
> outweighs the good for them. Its more like, "Oracle finds MySQL a
> threat, what is MySQL going to do now!" We don't want that kind of
> outcome. Also, there are ways of attacking that do not show Oracle as
> an agreesor, like hiring PostgreSQL developers.

From the fact that there was first an Oracle announcement and then some
"calming words" from MySQL we can tell that this wasn't friendly. If it
would have been, they would have had a joint press release instead of
this big grin from Oracle and that clenched teeth smile from MySQL in
return. So I agree, they are in deep trouble.

Now the much I agree that we should be carefull and watch out, I don't
think we should be jumping to conclusions either. Nobody outside Oracle
knows right now what their real plan and their real target with that
acquisition is.

Don't forget that only a part, although a substantial part, of Oracles
revenue comes out of the database business. One possibility is that they
try to do birth control against a low-cost R/3 backend, which
undoubtedly would be very bad for their CRM and ERP business in several
ways. After failing to build any open source community, SAP had found
MySQL, who was willing to maintain the SAP-DB sourcecode for them. If
Oracle squishes MySQL now, SAP is back to square one on that project.
There are many R/3 installations out there that go well beyond 1/4
million dollars per year in DB license fees alone. So even if they can
only delay this development by two to three years, it might pay off
quite well.

And look at it, all Oracle would have to do is to be so open source
friendly that they make InnoDB GPL only. Can you imagine the confusion
in the MySQL fan club if Oracle releases the next GPL version of InnoDB
and MySQL AB announces that they ripped out InnoDB support and favor
something with half the feature set instead?

Jan

>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:04:40PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> > We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
>> >
>> > The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to expend money to
>> > slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has been
>> > attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
>> >
>> > Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue or net
>> > income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:
>> >
>> > http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
>> >
>> > that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial statement will
>> > eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can use that as
>> > a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
>> >
>> > Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will eventually become a
>> > commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other application
>> > technology. However, every financial period they delay that time is
>> > more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is worth to
>> > slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB purchase was
>> > worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to make the
>> > cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
>> >
>> > Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
>> >
>> > o Hiring
>> >
>> > Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid or volunteer developers,
>> > thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
>> > approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
>> > expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what they did
>> > for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is what they
>> > _don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
>> >
>> > o Trademark
>> >
>> > Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names. He could
>> > be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to fail, then
>> > suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to own the
>> > domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it would be hard
>> > to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in gaining
>> > control of the domain names.
>> >
>> > o Patents
>> >
>> > Most technology people agree the software patent system is broken, but
>> > it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we can
>> > efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
>> >
>> >
>> > There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm us, but
>> > there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow us down,
>> > and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There are also
>> > possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
>> > somewhat independent of the project.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
>> > pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
>> > + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
>> > + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
>> >
>> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>> > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that your
>> > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>> >
>>
>> --
>> Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
>> Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
>> vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
>>
>

--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanWieck(at)Yahoo(dot)com #

I agree with Jan.

I think a good part of this whole situation has more to do with MySQL
having a core part of its product be dependent on an external entity.
Be they open source or not. I would think they have thought about
this possibility at various points in the past.

From where I sit, I dont see PostgreSQL having the same situation,
but perhaps there's some other ridiculously popular extension to pg
which I dont know about. I'd vote for just continuing to make a
better product, compete aggressively on the pr front (where pg still
has some way to go), and let the best player win.
___________________________________
Javier Soltero
Hyperic | www.hyperic.net
o- 415 738 2566 | c- 415 305 8733
javier(dot)soltero(at)hyperic(dot)net
___________________________________

On Oct 11, 2005, at 5:02 PM, Jan Wieck wrote:

> On 10/11/2005 6:31 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>
>> Jim C. Nasby wrote:
>>
>>> Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack
>>> us it
>>> actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a
>>> threat. At
>>> this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on
>>> how
>>> exactly the attacked.
>>>
>> Well, that was MySQL's reaction to it, but I think the harm far
>> outweighs the good for them. Its more like, "Oracle finds MySQL a
>> threat, what is MySQL going to do now!" We don't want that kind of
>> outcome. Also, there are ways of attacking that do not show
>> Oracle as
>> an agreesor, like hiring PostgreSQL developers.
>>
>
> From the fact that there was first an Oracle announcement and then
> some "calming words" from MySQL we can tell that this wasn't
> friendly. If it would have been, they would have had a joint press
> release instead of this big grin from Oracle and that clenched
> teeth smile from MySQL in return. So I agree, they are in deep
> trouble.
>
> Now the much I agree that we should be carefull and watch out, I
> don't think we should be jumping to conclusions either. Nobody
> outside Oracle knows right now what their real plan and their real
> target with that acquisition is.
>
> Don't forget that only a part, although a substantial part, of
> Oracles revenue comes out of the database business. One possibility
> is that they try to do birth control against a low-cost R/3
> backend, which undoubtedly would be very bad for their CRM and ERP
> business in several ways. After failing to build any open source
> community, SAP had found MySQL, who was willing to maintain the SAP-
> DB sourcecode for them. If Oracle squishes MySQL now, SAP is back
> to square one on that project. There are many R/3 installations out
> there that go well beyond 1/4 million dollars per year in DB
> license fees alone. So even if they can only delay this development
> by two to three years, it might pay off quite well.
>
> And look at it, all Oracle would have to do is to be so open source
> friendly that they make InnoDB GPL only. Can you imagine the
> confusion in the MySQL fan club if Oracle releases the next GPL
> version of InnoDB and MySQL AB announces that they ripped out
> InnoDB support and favor something with half the feature set instead?
>
>
> Jan
>
>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:04:40PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> > We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
>>> > > The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to
>>> expend money to
>>> > slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has
>>> been
>>> > attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
>>> > > Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue
>>> or net
>>> > income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:
>>> > > http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
>>> > > that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial
>>> statement will
>>> > eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can
>>> use that as
>>> > a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
>>> > > Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will
>>> eventually become a
>>> > commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other
>>> application
>>> > technology. However, every financial period they delay that
>>> time is
>>> > more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is
>>> worth to
>>> > slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB
>>> purchase was
>>> > worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to
>>> make the
>>> > cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
>>> > > Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
>>> > > o Hiring > > Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid
>>> or volunteer developers,
>>> > thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
>>> > approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
>>> > expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what
>>> they did
>>> > for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is
>>> what they
>>> > _don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
>>> > > o Trademark
>>> > > Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain
>>> names. He could
>>> > be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to
>>> fail, then
>>> > suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to
>>> own the
>>> > domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it
>>> would be hard
>>> > to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in
>>> gaining
>>> > control of the domain names.
>>> > > o Patents
>>> > > Most technology people agree the software patent system is
>>> broken, but
>>> > it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we
>>> can
>>> > efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
>>> > > > There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm
>>> us, but
>>> > there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow
>>> us down,
>>> > and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There
>>> are also
>>> > possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
>>> > somewhat independent of the project.
>>> > > -- > Bruce Momjian | http://
>>> candle.pha.pa.us
>>> > pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
>>> > + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
>>> > + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square,
>>> Pennsylvania 19073
>>> > > ---------------------------(end of
>>> broadcast)---------------------------
>>> > TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an
>>> appropriate
>>> > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so
>>> that your
>>> > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>>> > --
>>> Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
>>> Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
>>> vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461
>>>
>
>
> --
> #=====================================================================
> =#
> # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being
> right. #
> # Let's break this rule - forgive
> me. #
> #==================================================
> JanWieck(at)Yahoo(dot)com #
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org
>

Jan Wieck <JanWieck(at)Yahoo(dot)com> writes:
> And look at it, all Oracle would have to do is to be so open source
> friendly that they make InnoDB GPL only. Can you imagine the confusion
> in the MySQL fan club if Oracle releases the next GPL version of InnoDB
> and MySQL AB announces that they ripped out InnoDB support and favor
> something with half the feature set instead?

ROTFL ... yes, you would have to give Oracle ten points out of ten for
style, if they did it that way.

regards, tom lane

On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 18:52 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Oracle certainly will not win, and I think they know that

I think this too and that's why I'm here.

Best Regards, Simon Riggs

Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names.

Minor point here, but the following domain names:

postgresql.com
postgres.com
postgres.org

... were contributed back to the project by the late Great Bridge LLC, and are registered to the PGDG - with Tom as the admin contact, Marc as the tech contact. Marc/Hub.org has historically owned postgresql.org and postgresql.net, and it looks like postgres.net got picked up by some guy who's sitting on it.

Cheers,
Ned

pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org wrote on 10/11/2005 09:59:16 PM:

> Jan Wieck <JanWieck(at)Yahoo(dot)com> writes:
> > And look at it, all Oracle would have to do is to be so open source
> > friendly that they make InnoDB GPL only. Can you imagine the confusion
> > in the MySQL fan club if Oracle releases the next GPL version of InnoDB

> > and MySQL AB announces that they ripped out InnoDB support and favor
> > something with half the feature set instead?
>
> ROTFL ... yes, you would have to give Oracle ten points out of ten for
> style, if they did it that way.

LOL, a round for the judges. Seriously, all they need to do is drop their
caveat to GPL and sell subscriptions instead of licenses. They control all
of the source, not taking copyrighted stuff from outside authors. Look but
do not touch open source. You want something? Buy a subscription. They
are convincing people to buy licenses, not much of a stretch to go to
subscriptions. That is a winning scenario for everyone, except maybe
Oracle.

Cheers,

Rick
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives?
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org

Ned,

> and it looks like postgres.net got picked up by some
> guy who's sitting on it.

yeah, I'm not sure what he wants. Postgres.net currently directs people to
PostgreSQL.org, and I've offered the contact of record money to buy it off
him, with no response.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Hi,

Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the project
with big money, would that not mean, that the project would be a good
path to earn a lot of money. So, new talented developers could join the
project and see that as a path to high salary jobs??

Rgs,

Jussi

Bruce Momjian wrote:

>Here is a followup to this email. A few people asked me questions off
>list, and here are my replies:
>
>[ Comment mentioning Open Office and Mozilla have not been attacked.]
>
>Cconsider that one thing that has restrained Microsoft (and previously
>IBM) was US Department of Justice oversight. Oracle does not have such
>oversight, so they are more likely to act aggressively. Basically, just
>because attacks have not happened in the Linux or Open Office areas
>(Microsoft territory) does not mean they will not happen in the database
>area. Oracle has a history of aggressive activity, and it has shown
>with MySQL now. I doubt many would have thought Oracle would have
>purchased technology that MySQL depends upon before it happened.
>
>Oracle certainly will not win, and I think they know that, but as
>project leaders, we should try to be defensive to prevent attacks from
>inflicting harm to the project.
>
>[ Comment asking what we can do to protect ourselves.]
>
>We can't do much, actually. The trademark thing can be secured, but
>other than that, I see no other defenses we could use. We can't prevent
>people from being hired, and we can't guard against patent attacks.
>
>I am willing to write up something for our web site if people think that
>would be helpful.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>
>>We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
>>
>>The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to expend money to
>>slow down competitive database technology. Now that MySQL has been
>>attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
>>
>>Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue or net
>>income on attacking PostgreSQL. Given this financial statement:
>>
>> http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
>>
>>that would be USD $20-100 million. (The Oracle financial statement will
>>eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can use that as
>>a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
>>
>>Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will eventually become a
>>commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other application
>>technology. However, every financial period they delay that time is
>>more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is worth to
>>slow down PostgreSQL. Obviously they thought the InnoDB purchase was
>>worth it to slow down or control MySQL. Our goal should be to make the
>>cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
>>
>>Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
>>
>>o Hiring
>>
>>Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid or volunteer developers,
>>thereby slowing down the project. Individuals would probably be
>>approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
>>expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what they did
>>for Oracle would be unimportant. What would be important is what they
>>_don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
>>
>>o Trademark
>>
>>Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain names. He could
>>be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to fail, then
>>suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to own the
>>domain names. The trademark has not been enforced, and it would be hard
>>to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in gaining
>>control of the domain names.
>>
>>o Patents
>>
>>Most technology people agree the software patent system is broken, but
>>it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we can
>>efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
>>
>>
>>There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm us, but
>>there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow us down,
>>and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future. There are also
>>possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
>>somewhat independent of the project.
>>
>>--
>> Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
>> pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
>> + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
>> + Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073
>>
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>>TIP 1: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>> subscribe-nomail command to majordomo(at)postgresql(dot)org so that your
>> message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the project with
> big money, would that not mean, that the project would be a good path to earn
> a lot of money. So, new talented developers could join the project and see
> that as a path to high salary jobs??

Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate, but
twisted :)

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

On 10/12/2005 6:18 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the project with
>> big money, would that not mean, that the project would be a good path to earn
>> a lot of money. So, new talented developers could join the project and see
>> that as a path to high salary jobs??
>
> Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate, but
> twisted :)

Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping PostgreSQL
alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".

Jan

--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanWieck(at)Yahoo(dot)com #

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jan Wieck wrote:

> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping PostgreSQL
> alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".

Jan,

Or, to demonstrate that it's not a monopoly. There will be two choices:
Oracle and postgres.

Rich

--
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President | Author of "Quantifying Environmental
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM) | Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic"
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com> Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jan Wieck wrote:

> On 10/12/2005 6:18 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the project
>>> with big money, would that not mean, that the project would be a good path
>>> to earn a lot of money. So, new talented developers could join the project
>>> and see that as a path to high salary jobs??
>>
>> Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate, but
>> twisted :)
>
> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping PostgreSQL alive
> as it's "future DB engineer forge".

Definitely ... get new developers involved over here to 'cut their teeth'
and then pull them over there once they are through the teething period :)
Or, encourage them to work here wihle still in University, learn DB
internals ...

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
domain name or person.

On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:47 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jan Wieck wrote:
>
>> On 10/12/2005 6:18 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the
>>>> project with big money, would that not mean, that the project would
>>>> be a good path to earn a lot of money. So, new talented developers
>>>> could join the project and see that as a path to high salary jobs??
>>> Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate,
>>> but twisted :)
>>
>> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping
>> PostgreSQL alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".
>
> Definitely ... get new developers involved over here to 'cut their
> teeth' and then pull them over there once they are through the
> teething period :) Or, encourage them to work here wihle still in
> University, learn DB internals ...
>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match
>

Matthew Terenzio wrote:
> As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
> him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
> camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
> while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
> domain name or person.

Right, all these damages are temporary, which is probably why we haven't
been attacked yet.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

>
> On Oct 12, 2005, at 8:47 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jan Wieck wrote:
> >
> >> On 10/12/2005 6:18 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> >>
> >>> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the
> >>>> project with big money, would that not mean, that the project would
> >>>> be a good path to earn a lot of money. So, new talented developers
> >>>> could join the project and see that as a path to high salary jobs??
> >>> Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate,
> >>> but twisted :)
> >>
> >> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping
> >> PostgreSQL alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".
> >
> > Definitely ... get new developers involved over here to 'cut their
> > teeth' and then pull them over there once they are through the
> > teething period :) Or, encourage them to work here wihle still in
> > University, learn DB internals ...
> >
> > ----
> > Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> > (http://www.hub.org)
> > Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> > 7615664
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of
> > broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> > choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> > match
> >
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq
>

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

Matthew Terenzio <matt(at)jobsforge(dot)com> writes:
> As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
> him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
> camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
> while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
> domain name or person.

Yeah, I was thinking that myself: even if a hostile group managed to
obtain control of the trademark and/or domain name, they could not kill
the project. We'd just regroup under a new name --- it'd slow us down
for a bit, sure, but no more. The project name has changed once
already, remember.

The only serious threat I see on the horizon is patent issues. Again,
I don't think that could kill us over the long term --- we could surely
write our way out of any noncritical patents (see recent ARC fiasco for
a fire drill of this nature), and we ourselves are prior art with which
to defeat any patents on critical algorithms. A patent lawsuit could
certainly hurt us, if only by soaking up the time and attention of key
developers, but I don't think it could kill the project.

regards, tom lane

Bruce Momjian wrote:

>Matthew Terenzio wrote:
>
>
>>As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
>>him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
>>camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
>>while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
>>domain name or person.
>>
>>
>
>Right, all these damages are temporary, which is probably why we haven't
>been attacked yet.
>
>
>
>
There are also logistical problems with attacking PostgreSQL because
nobody owns it.
MySQL was an easy target because of the way they negotiated their
business contracts
for use of Innodb.

PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
concern that I can see
is the potential for the Software Patent crap.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/

Right. Though there are attacks, there are no fatal attacks. MySQL has
to make money, so they can have fatal attacks.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tom Lane wrote:
> Matthew Terenzio <matt(at)jobsforge(dot)com> writes:
> > As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle hiring
> > him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would set up
> > camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt things for a
> > while but the software is too important to too many to be killed by a
> > domain name or person.
>
> Yeah, I was thinking that myself: even if a hostile group managed to
> obtain control of the trademark and/or domain name, they could not kill
> the project. We'd just regroup under a new name --- it'd slow us down
> for a bit, sure, but no more. The project name has changed once
> already, remember.
>
> The only serious threat I see on the horizon is patent issues. Again,
> I don't think that could kill us over the long term --- we could surely
> write our way out of any noncritical patents (see recent ARC fiasco for
> a fire drill of this nature), and we ourselves are prior art with which
> to defeat any patents on critical algorithms. A patent lawsuit could
> certainly hurt us, if only by soaking up the time and attention of key
> developers, but I don't think it could kill the project.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to
> choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not
> match
>

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.

Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
crap", is there any "reasonable time" provided to remove it? We've
already shown in the past that that isn't a big hurdle, with the ARC
stuff, so am just curiuos as to how big a thing the Patent stuff is, or
does even that fall under 'temporary setback / inconvience'?

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
>> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
>
>
> Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software
> Patent crap", is there any "reasonable time" provided to remove it?
> We've already shown in the past that that isn't a big hurdle, with the
> ARC stuff, so am just curiuos as to how big a thing the Patent stuff
> is, or does even that fall under 'temporary setback / inconvience'?

Depends on them. They can request "Injunctive Relief" but they have a
whole bunch of other things they would have to get around... They are
more likely to go after
Command Prompt, Pervasive and most like EnterpriseDB than anybody.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> ----
> Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services
> (http://www.hub.org)
> Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ:
> 7615664
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
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--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/

> Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
> crap", is there any "reasonable time" provided to remove it? We've
> already shown in the past that that isn't a big hurdle, with the ARC
> stuff, so am just curiuos as to how big a thing the Patent stuff is, or
> does even that fall under 'temporary setback / inconvience'?

That may depend on what's been patented. In my opinions (and more
importantly in the eyes of more than a few intellectual property attorneys)
the patent office has granted some very dubious software patents, and a
deep pockets patent holder would probably have the upper hand wielding them.
--
Mike Nolan

Jan Wieck wrote:
> On 10/12/2005 6:18 PM, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Well, if the PostgreSQL developers would be hired away from the
>>> project with big money, would that not mean, that the project would
>>> be a good path to earn a lot of money. So, new talented developers
>>> could join the project and see that as a path to high salary jobs??
>>
>>
>> Wow, what a twisted way to look at it ... not entirely inaccurate, but
>> twisted :)
>
>
> Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping PostgreSQL
> alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".

Looks like a good reason why Oracle should sponsor PostgreSQL heavily :-)

Regards,
Andreas

On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 08:52:58AM +0000, Andreas Pflug wrote:
> Jan Wieck wrote:
> >Oracle could even develop an exceptional interest in keeping PostgreSQL
> >alive as it's "future DB engineer forge".
>
> Looks like a good reason why Oracle should sponsor PostgreSQL heavily :-)

Heh. This gives me the thought that Oracle might be going after MySQL
for no other reason than to stop them from instilling really bad ideas
into people who then think they can design/develop against databases.
Somehow I can see Tom Kyte (of AskTom fame) doing a dance around his
office...
--
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Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
>> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
>> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
>
>
> Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
> crap",

Personally I think it's quite unlikely Oracle would try attacking
any F/OSS project on patent grounds. They've pretty much bet
the company on Linux (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825433.html
"Within the next 5 years, half of Oracle's customers may be running
Linux, company President Charles Phillips has predicted". With
the sensitivity in the community that SCO/Baystar-and-friends created
I think that it'd be suicidal for Oracle to start any sort of
patent-vs-F/OSS war. Imagine the speculation of whether they'd
go after Linux itself next.........

My guess is that Oracle simply recognized that the Innobase guys
were solid database engineers with a product with a growing customer
base in a niche (low end databases) that Oracle didn't have a large
presence.

Therefore it made sense from both a recruiting and a
business growth opportunity to acquire them.

On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
and the proven market for those products. But rather than
harm the project, I imagine that would simply create incentives
for other talented database developers to join the project.

> Personally I think it's quite unlikely Oracle would try attacking
> any F/OSS project on patent grounds. They've pretty much bet
> the company on Linux (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825433.html

Linux isn't a competitor, PostgreSQL is.

> My guess is that Oracle simply recognized that the Innobase guys
> were solid database engineers with a product with a growing customer
> base in a niche (low end databases) that Oracle didn't have a large
> presence.

Oh if the world were that nice. Yes you could be correct but my very
strong opinion on this is that they did it because it can set back
MySQL for 18-24 months.

>
> Therefore it made sense from both a recruiting and a
> business growth opportunity to acquire them.

Oracle isn't interested in the 395.00 market.

>
> On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
> postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
> and the proven market for those products.

For people maybe, but they really don't need the database.

Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake

> But rather than
> harm the project, I imagine that would simply create incentives
> for other talented database developers to join the project.
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
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On Fri, 2005-10-14 at 12:18, Ron Mayer wrote:
> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > On Wed, 12 Oct 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >
> >> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
> >> concern that I can see is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
> >
> >
> > Stupid question here ... if Oracle came at us with "the Software Patent
> > crap",
>
> Personally I think it's quite unlikely Oracle would try attacking
> any F/OSS project on patent grounds. They've pretty much bet
> the company on Linux (http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5825433.html
> "Within the next 5 years, half of Oracle's customers may be running
> Linux, company President Charles Phillips has predicted". With
> the sensitivity in the community that SCO/Baystar-and-friends created
> I think that it'd be suicidal for Oracle to start any sort of
> patent-vs-F/OSS war. Imagine the speculation of whether they'd
> go after Linux itself next.........

But that's the beauty of buying innobase. Oracle can attack MySQL and
still be the F/OSS hero! It's simple. Release the innodb code base
under GPL only, no commercial license. Anyone who wants it can use it,
but they have to only use it in GPL projects.

Then, MySQL has a hard decision, do they continue to make a GPL version
of MySQL with innodb and remove the innodb handler from their
commercially licensed version of MySQL, or do they pull it altogether.

If they leave it in the GPL version then they are encouraging their
customers to rexamine their usage and try to use the GPL version.

If they pull it, they encourage a fork of the code base by another group
who might want to keep innodb and doesn't mind it being all GPL.

Of course, this group could then architect a LGPL connect library on
their own, and then MySQL would be freely usable with commercial
software like it once was.

Boom, MySQL loses large amounts of their funding, and Oracle wins a
public relations coup by releasing innobase under the GPL and hosting
the project on their servers.

> My guess is that Oracle simply recognized that the Innobase guys
> were solid database engineers with a product with a growing customer
> base in a niche (low end databases) that Oracle didn't have a large
> presence.

There are, I believe, exactly ONE innobase guy, the primary developer.
Nice guy, but there are still a lot of issues to be worked out in
innodb. Hopefully, Oracle can provide the funding to make it work.

It would be great if Oracle paid to fork MySQL to a pure GPL product,
producing a new connection lib under LGPL, and hosting the whole thing
as a version of MySQL that ONLY uses innodb.

By forcing it to use one and only one table handler, they would then
focus development effort on SQL compliance, proper operation, and adding
features that work with innodb, like full text searching. Since the
basic database would retain a good amount of interoperability with the
old MySQL, this new database could easily take away a fair share of
their market. Then, Oracle could sell support contracts, not licenses,
and back them up with their rather large corporate infrastructure.

> On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
> postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
> and the proven market for those products. But rather than
> harm the project, I imagine that would simply create incentives
> for other talented database developers to join the project.

Yeah, I'd see it something like that, with the focus being on selling
consulting services for folks using PostgreSQL...

Scott Marlowe <smarlowe(at)g2switchworks(dot)com> writes:
> It would be great if Oracle paid to fork MySQL to a pure GPL product,
> producing a new connection lib under LGPL, and hosting the whole thing
> as a version of MySQL that ONLY uses innodb.

> By forcing it to use one and only one table handler, they would then
> focus development effort on SQL compliance, proper operation, and adding
> features that work with innodb, like full text searching. Since the
> basic database would retain a good amount of interoperability with the
> old MySQL, this new database could easily take away a fair share of
> their market. Then, Oracle could sell support contracts, not licenses,
> and back them up with their rather large corporate infrastructure.

That's a really interesting angle --- not only does Oracle get rid of
what they may or may not see as serious competition, but they get a
chance to make some money at the same time. I'm not convinced about the
"only one table handler" part of your story. Oracle certainly has the
resources to fix up multiple handlers if they wish, and they wouldn't
want to leave a loophole that MySQL AB could use to claim that their
version is better. The only one I'd see them dropping, in this
scenario, is BDB (unless they could buy out Sleepycat too, which is
perhaps not out of the question).

I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of this,
assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to their core
business. The most they can do is force MySQL AB to waste a year or so
reimplementing something equivalent to InnoDB; which would hurt them but
it's hardly likely to kill them. But with your scenario Oracle might
actually make money out of the deal, which makes it make some sense.

regards, tom lane

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>[Ron Mayer wrote]
>>...Oracle...recognized...solid database engineers with
>>a product with a growing customer base...
>>...made sense from both a recruiting and a
>>business growth opportunity to acquire them.
>
> Oracle isn't interested in the 395.00 market.

I think it's the larger MySQL customers (US Census Department, etc)
that they are interested in.

If the Census Department needs to look outside Oracle for low-end
databases, that opens the door to Access / SQL-Server / etc - which
really is a threat to Oracle.

On the other hand, if the Census Department can get all of their
database needs from Oracle, it's a much safer world for Oracle Corp.

>>On those grounds I could certainly see Oracle buying successful
>>postgresql-based companies -- again, for both the talented people
>>and the proven market for those products.
>
> For people maybe, but they really don't need the database.

Not the database itself, as much as the business knowledge of
how to sell low-end databases.

MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
that appeals enough to those customers to buy it. Sure, Oracle was
probably in 90% of those places anyway - but clearly those existing
customeres saw the need for a low-end database that wasn't covered
by Oracle's existing offerings. Even if Oracle gets little revenue
from the low-end-DB-sales to those guys; if it keeps integration
between the Census Department's MySQL databases and Oracle-Expensive
working reliably, it's worth doing.

I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well

> MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
> include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
> Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
> with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)

You do know that many of those listed above also use PostgreSQL :)

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/

On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 01:02:00PM -0700, Ron Mayer wrote:
> I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
> similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well

PostgreSQL support companies don't have the leverage that Oracle and
MySQL do to get their clients to "come out of the closet". There
_are_ such customer lists, but the license for PostgreSQL doesn't
entail that those customers be used as marketing fodder.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
"The year's penultimate month" is not in truth a good way of saying
November.
--H.W. Fowler

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

> Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>> Matthew Terenzio wrote:
>>
>>
>>> As much as I respect Marc and Postgresql.org, I can't see Oracle
>>> hiring him away as a "killer" threat to the community. People would
>>> set up camp somewhere else, like Command Prompt. It would hurt
>>> things for a while but the software is too important to too many to
>>> be killed by a domain name or person.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Right, all these damages are temporary, which is probably why we haven't
>> been attacked yet.
>>
>>
>>
>>
> There are also logistical problems with attacking PostgreSQL because
> nobody owns it.
> MySQL was an easy target because of the way they negotiated their
> business contracts
> for use of Innodb.
>
> PostgreSQL doesn't suffer from that. Our only real, substantiated
> concern that I can see
> is the potential for the Software Patent crap.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt? (As an
example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.
So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.

Jeff

> But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt?

Well then I would be sitting on a beach in New Zealend with an umbrella
drink :)

> (As an
> example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
> business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
> business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.

That is a farily good point but one of the beautiful things about Open
Source is that even if they bought Command Prompt, they would also have
to buy Pervasive and EnterpriseDB and GreenPlum and SRA.

And then -- by doing so they are just opening the market for a new set
of companies to start supporting PostgreSQL.

> So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
> cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
> dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.

No, Larry isn't dumb. You don't get to be the second richest man in the
world by being dumb. However he is very strategic and I don't see (at
this point) a strategic reason to attack PostgreSQL via Oracle.

PostgreSQL at this point is actually a good value add to the Oracle
proposition. In 5 years we are probably going to be a immediate direct
threat but not right now.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

>
> Jeff
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
--
Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 01:02:00PM -0700, Ron Mayer wrote:
>>
>>>I'd suspect that any single postgresql-support company that had a
>>>similar customer list would get offers from Oracle as well
>>
>> PostgreSQL support companies don't have the leverage that Oracle and
>> MySQL do to get their clients to "come out of the closet". There
>> _are_ such customer lists, but the license for PostgreSQL doesn't
>> entail that those customers be used as marketing fodder.

Agreed, but I think my point still stands -- any PostgreSQL company
with such customer lists who wants to get bought by Oracle could
probably do so easily just by firing off an email to the right person.

Oracle likes sales channels into such customers; and likes
growing through acquisitions.

Heck, they bought 10 (11 counting Innobase?) companies already
during just 6 months of this year:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1861215,00.asp
" Oracle announced its 10th acquisition in six months
Tuesday at its annual OpenWorld conference in San Francisco."

And they don't even seem to care if the underlying engine
is theirs or a competitor. They probably even support
DB2 now, thanks to their Siebel, Retek, I-Flex and
PeopleSoft acquisitions.

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>>MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
>>>include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
>>>Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
>>>with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
>>
>> You do know that many of those listed above also use PostgreSQL :)

Sure. I know that some of them (Cisco, at least) sell products
based on postgresql; and from first hand experience know another
uses it for some really big databases. I'm sure most of them
also use BDB and Access and their-own flat-files as well.

The difference is when the US Census Bureau (a heavy Oracle
user) has a many million dollar budget for databases, and requests
bids from dtabase vendors. It would be very nice for Oracle to
be able to say things like "yes, we can supply all your needs as
opposed to having to go to multiple vendors".

Whether the census department sues PostgreSQL or GPL-MySQL or BDB
internally doesn't affect Oracle much, since the dollars are
really in the high-end systems. But conceding that the Census
department needs to look elsewhere for commercial database
vendors (which opens the door for those guys with Access/SQLServer)
to meet their database needs must really hurt.

On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 01:24:05PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
> > MySQL has a nice set of reference customers (MySQL AB's claims
> > include Google, US Census Bureau, Yahoo, Sabre, CERN, NASA, Associated
> > Press, Macys, Cox, Cable&Wireless, Nokia, Cisco, Sony, etc) - along
> > with a proven business structure (combination of product + marketing)
>
> You do know that many of those listed above also use PostgreSQL :)

Do we know that for sure? It'd be damn nice to be able to put that kind
of info on our website...
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

Tom Lane wrote:

>That's a really interesting angle --- not only does Oracle get rid of
>what they may or may not see as serious competition, but they get a
>chance to make some money at the same time. I'm not convinced about the
>"only one table handler" part of your story. Oracle certainly has the
>resources to fix up multiple handlers if they wish, and they wouldn't
>want to leave a loophole that MySQL AB could use to claim that their
>version is better. The only one I'd see them dropping, in this
>scenario, is BDB (unless they could buy out Sleepycat too, which is
>perhaps not out of the question).
>
>
There is another possibility too... I don't really see Oracle trying to
force MySQL to be GPL-only because that would have the potential to
materially harm their own market position. Kill MySQL AB and just maybe
the community might become less MySQL AB-centric.

What is a larger possibility is to use this to contain MySQL AB. Jack
up the license fees to the point that MySQL is no longer the
super-low-cost alternative. This would also cut into MySQL's
profitability at the same time and help slow down the pace of development.

The only real downside is that I could see MySQL developing a
FirebirdSQL table handler if too much pressure is put on them. This
might actually work OK since Firebird has an embeddable engine. If they
do this then Oracle might end up with basically the personnel from the
Innobase acquisition and very little else. Of course MySQL has
progressed to the point where larger license fees might not alienate too
many customers.

>I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of this,
>assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to their core
>business. The most they can do is force MySQL AB to waste a year or so
>reimplementing something equivalent to InnoDB; which would hurt them but
>it's hardly likely to kill them.
>
A year delay with MySQL's pace of development and track record?

> But with your scenario Oracle might
>actually make money out of the deal, which makes it make some sense.
>
>
I was assuming that this deal was primarily done to scare customers away
from using MySQL. The timing could not have been more deliberate--
right before 5.0 is supposed to be released. I think that the first
message was to scare business customers away from MySQL. Secondly they
may want an additional inroad into FOSS. Third, they may be after
personnel (i.e the buyout may be really a hiring bonus).

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

> The only real downside is that I could see MySQL developing a
> FirebirdSQL table handler if too much pressure is put on them. This
> might actually work OK since Firebird has an embeddable engine. If they
> do this then Oracle might end up with basically the personnel from the
> Innobase acquisition and very little else. Of course MySQL has
> progressed to the point where larger license fees might not alienate too
> many customers.
>

Does the FirebirdSQL license allow MySQL AB to embed firebird and then
sell it commercially? Does any one entity own the copyright to
FirebirdSQL so that they could dual license it to MySQL AB?

If not, what's the advantage to MySQL using FirebirdSQL as opposed to,
say, PostgreSQL?

And as someone mentioned in a related comment, what does MySQL bring to
the table? Everyone would know that MySQL DB was really just FirebirdSQL
with a different frontend. The PR would be devestating to MySQL AB. Not
quite as bad as if they used PostgreSQL, but still bad.

Regards,
Jeff Davis

> There is another possibility too... I don't really see Oracle trying to
> force MySQL to be GPL-only because that would have the potential to
> materially harm their own market position. Kill MySQL AB and just maybe
> the community might become less MySQL AB-centric.
>
> What is a larger possibility is to use this to contain MySQL AB. Jack
> up the license fees to the point that MySQL is no longer the
> super-low-cost alternative. This would also cut into MySQL's
> profitability at the same time and help slow down the pace of development.
>
I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually and then pose that as a low-cost alternative.
They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the price tag of MySQL more then
they paid for InnoDB. MySQL's existing customer base is very attractive to Oracle.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

Jeff Davis wrote:

>
>> The only real downside is that I could see MySQL developing a
>> FirebirdSQL table handler if too much pressure is put on them. This
>> might actually work OK since Firebird has an embeddable engine. If
>> they do this then Oracle might end up with basically the personnel
>> from the Innobase acquisition and very little else. Of course MySQL
>> has progressed to the point where larger license fees might not
>> alienate too many customers.
>>
>
> Does the FirebirdSQL license allow MySQL AB to embed firebird and then
> sell it commercially? Does any one entity own the copyright to
> FirebirdSQL so that they could dual license it to MySQL AB?

Yes. It is a modified Mozilla Public License which allows for embedding
in proprietary applications. However, it is LGPL-like in that they have
to provide the source code of the Firebird component and any
modifications... They do *not* have to relicense all of MySQL to use
it. The copyright is owned by the community.

>
> If not, what's the advantage to MySQL using FirebirdSQL as opposed to,
> say, PostgreSQL?

I assume you mean if they are allowed to use it. PostgreSQL really is
not designed to be embedded in applications. Firebird has that
possibility... You do have some issues. Last I checked there was no
equivalent to the text datatype, but that was with 1.0, and they are up
to 1.5 now (Firebird seems to have no comprehensive documentation on
their site).

>
> And as someone mentioned in a related comment, what does MySQL bring
> to the table? Everyone would know that MySQL DB was really just
> FirebirdSQL with a different frontend. The PR would be devestating to
> MySQL AB. Not quite as bad as if they used PostgreSQL, but still bad.

So their options would be?

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

>>But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt?
>>
>>
>
>Well then I would be sitting on a beach in New Zealend with an umbrella
>drink :)
>
>
>
>> (As an
>>example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
>>business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
>>business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.
>>
>>
>
>That is a farily good point but one of the beautiful things about Open
>Source is that even if they bought Command Prompt, they would also have
>to buy Pervasive and EnterpriseDB and GreenPlum and SRA.
>
>And then -- by doing so they are just opening the market for a new set
>of companies to start supporting PostgreSQL.
>
>
>
>>So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
>>cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
>>dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.
>>
>>
>
>No, Larry isn't dumb. You don't get to be the second richest man in the
>world by being dumb. However he is very strategic and I don't see (at
>this point) a strategic reason to attack PostgreSQL via Oracle.
>
>
I don't think that PostgreSQL is really on Oracle's radar at the moment.

>PostgreSQL at this point is actually a good value add to the Oracle
>proposition. In 5 years we are probably going to be a immediate direct
>threat but not right now.
>
>
Note that it was a few years ago that MySQL first popped up on Oracle's
radar screen enough for them to add migration tools helping people move
from MySQL to Oracle. I don't see such tools available currently for
PostgreSQL to Oracle migrations at the moment. So I suspect that we are
still seen as the little guy :-) The difference is that while we have a
smaller number of large users, MySQL has a larger number of smaller
users so they technically have better market share numbers *and* they
have better plublicity.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

El Dom 16 Oct 2005 01:20, Chris Travers escribió:
>
> The only real downside is that I could see MySQL developing a
> FirebirdSQL table handler if too much pressure is put on them. This
> might actually work OK since Firebird has an embeddable engine. If they
> do this then Oracle might end up with basically the personnel from the
> Innobase acquisition and very little else. Of course MySQL has
> progressed to the point where larger license fees might not alienate too
> many customers.

I'm not sure, as FireBird has a very difficult to understand license, but
could they enforce there commercial license with the FireBird engine (if they
have it)?

--
select 'mmarques' || '@' || 'unl.edu.ar' AS email;
---------------------------------------------------------
Martín Marqués | Programador, DBA
Centro de Telemática | Administrador
Universidad Nacional
del Litoral
---------------------------------------------------------

El Dom 16 Oct 2005 13:48, Jeff Davis escribió:
>
> If not, what's the advantage to MySQL using FirebirdSQL as opposed to,
> say, PostgreSQL?

I think it's stupid to even think about an emmbedded PostgreSQL in MySQL. The
advantage of using InnoDB emmbeded in MySQL is that the former doesn't,
AFAIK, an SQL languaje. So Innodb gives transaction and RI, and MySQL gives
an SQL languaje.

Now, what would MySQL give PostgreSQL?

--
select 'mmarques' || '@' || 'unl.edu.ar' AS email;
---------------------------------------------------------
Martín Marqués | Programador, DBA
Centro de Telemática | Administrador
Universidad Nacional
del Litoral
---------------------------------------------------------

>>
>> And as someone mentioned in a related comment, what does MySQL bring
>> to the table? Everyone would know that MySQL DB was really just
>> FirebirdSQL with a different frontend. The PR would be devestating to
>> MySQL AB. Not quite as bad as if they used PostgreSQL, but still bad.
>
>
> So their options would be?
>

Good question. I'm sure MySQL AB would like to know. That's why MySQL DB
users are so worried.

Regards,
Jeff Davis

Martín Marqués wrote:
> El Dom 16 Oct 2005 13:48, Jeff Davis escribió:
>
>>If not, what's the advantage to MySQL using FirebirdSQL as opposed to,
>>say, PostgreSQL?
>
>
> I think it's stupid to even think about an emmbedded PostgreSQL in MySQL. The
> advantage of using InnoDB emmbeded in MySQL is that the former doesn't,
> AFAIK, an SQL languaje. So Innodb gives transaction and RI, and MySQL gives
> an SQL languaje.
>
> Now, what would MySQL give PostgreSQL?
>

That was my point. FirebirdSQL already provides the SQL language, so
what does MySQL offer that FirebirdSQL doesn't?

Regards,
Jeff Davis

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually

No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
sell to Oracle.

> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
> price tag of MySQL

You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200510170831
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> I don't think that PostgreSQL is really on Oracle's radar at the moment.

Please don't make this assumption. PostgreSQL is *very* much on their radar,
and probably represents the biggest long-term threat to their core database
business at the moment. We got a hint of that during the .org bidding, but
for now it is in Oracle's interest not to call attention to PostgreSQL.
The last thing they want is publicity for the project. We may be a harder
target to hurt than MySQL, but we are a target, make no mistake about it.
I'm sure PostgreSQL is on the radar of Sybase, Microsoft, and IBM as well.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200510170838
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF6AB8F79407E94445B4BC9B906714964AC8
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Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>
> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> sell to Oracle.
>
Huh? And since when are private companies not interested in being bought?

>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>> price tag of MySQL
>
> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.
>
I'm not sure the cost is insignificant to them, but even if it is, how do you figure that
affects my idea negatively? I think it's the opposite. The acquired customer base is huge
and that's what matters.

But, speculating is pointless. Time will tell.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>
> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> sell to Oracle.
>
>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>> price tag of MySQL
>
> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.

Not only that, "potentially crippling" MySQL by pulling InnoDB out from
under them would not only reduce MySQL's worth, but also has a massive
potential of reducing their marketshare, long term.

Until MySQL has to re-negotiate their contract with Inno^H^H^H^HOracle,
its all speculation though ... don't know when that comes due, but their
might be enough time between now and then for MySQL to recover on their
own (ie. come up with an alternative to InnoDB) ...

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
>
>>
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>>
>>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>>
>> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
>> sell to Oracle.
>>
>>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>>> price tag of MySQL
>>
>> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
>> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.
>
> Not only that, "potentially crippling" MySQL by pulling InnoDB out from
> under them would not only reduce MySQL's worth, but also has a massive
> potential of reducing their marketshare, long term.
>
And in what respect would that be negative for Oracle? There will be enough customers stuck
on MySQL to make a purchase worth while anyway, reduced market share or not.

Oracle has two ways of making money from the InnoDB acquisition:
1. They charge for InnoDB licenses and thereby remove MySQL's profit. MySQL will probably
die if they do this and their customers will seek alternatives. I think PostgreSQL is a far
more likely alternative then Oracle. Especially if Oracle is the one who provokes the change.
2. They buy MySQL and charge the customers what they are charged today. Everyone is happy
and Oracle just expanded their customer base.

> Until MySQL has to re-negotiate their contract with Inno^H^H^H^HOracle,
> its all speculation though ... don't know when that comes due, but their
> might be enough time between now and then for MySQL to recover on their
> own (ie. come up with an alternative to InnoDB) ...
>
In which case Oracle would gain nothing from its purchase of InnoDB. I don't see that as a
very likely scenario.

Regards,
Thomas Hallgren

> Please don't make this assumption. PostgreSQL is *very* much on their radar,
> and probably represents the biggest long-term threat to their core database
> business at the moment. We got a hint of that during the .org bidding, but
> for now it is in Oracle's interest not to call attention to PostgreSQL.
> The last thing they want is publicity for the project. We may be a harder
> target to hurt than MySQL, but we are a target, make no mistake about it.
> I'm sure PostgreSQL is on the radar of Sybase, Microsoft, and IBM as well.

And they probably read every word we write ;)

Chris

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 09:46, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:
> > Please don't make this assumption. PostgreSQL is *very* much on their radar,
> > and probably represents the biggest long-term threat to their core database
> > business at the moment. We got a hint of that during the .org bidding, but
> > for now it is in Oracle's interest not to call attention to PostgreSQL.
> > The last thing they want is publicity for the project. We may be a harder
> > target to hurt than MySQL, but we are a target, make no mistake about it.
> > I'm sure PostgreSQL is on the radar of Sybase, Microsoft, and IBM as well.
>
> And they probably read every word we write ;)

I'd bet they read plenty, but don't necessarily understand a lot,
judging by their pitiful fud campaign when Afilias proposed using
postgresql as a database behind .org. They tried to say PostgreSQL
didn't support transactions. So, while we may be on their screens, and
I'm sure some marketeer there tries to keep up with some of the traffic
here, the actual comprehension seems pretty low judging by their past
statements.

Actually, I kinda hope it stays that way.

tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) writes:
> I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of
> this, assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to
> their core business. The most they can do is force MySQL AB to
> waste a year or so reimplementing something equivalent to InnoDB;
> which would hurt them but it's hardly likely to kill them. But with
> your scenario Oracle might actually make money out of the deal,
> which makes it make some sense.

Well, Jan and I were puzzling over the whole "why MaxDB?" thing, and
the only way we were able to rationalize MySQL AB's involvement with
THAT was the theory that MySQL AB wants to become an alternative DB
backend vendor for SAP R/3.

Oracle is the main player there, and has been for a long time.

The whole thing about SAP AG buying up SAP-DB (which has become MaxDB)
was that they were "gaming" with Oracle over database licenses.
Having their own "free" alternative to Oracle represented a useful
tool when in license negotiations.

They then discovered that the codebase was something of a mess and
that they weren't interested in maintaining it, from whence came the
"freeing" of SAP-DB.

Where MySQL AB seems to fit into this is that they have a "barely
functional" DBMS engine that nonetheless happens to be nearly
functional enough to be usable as a backend for SAP R/3.

They were pretty proudly announcing at OSCON 2005 that they had enough
functionality to support R/3...

If MySQL AB has an *actively maintained* (unlike SAP-DB) database
engine, that makes them attractive to SAP AG whether as a business
partner or as a buyout target. Either could be quite attractive to
owners and venture capital providers alike.

Of course, if the "ability to support R/3" requires InnoDB stuff, then
this means Oracle just did a nice job of cutting off this strategy...
--
output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "cbbrowne.com")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/unix.html
Mental health is overrated!!

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 22:46 +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne wrote:

> And they probably read every word we write ;)

...and it will certainly slow them down :-)

Thomas Hallgren wrote:

> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>> Hash: SHA1
>>>
>>>
>>>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>>>
>>>
>>> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
>>> sell to Oracle.
>>>
>>>> They started with InnoDB because that is likely to lower the
>>>> price tag of MySQL
>>>
>>>
>>> You seem to misunderstand the power and wealth of Oracle. The cost of
>>> buying MySQL AB would be insignificant to them.
>>
>>
>> Not only that, "potentially crippling" MySQL by pulling InnoDB out
>> from under them would not only reduce MySQL's worth, but also has a
>> massive potential of reducing their marketshare, long term.
>>
> And in what respect would that be negative for Oracle? There will be
> enough customers stuck on MySQL to make a purchase worth while anyway,
> reduced market share or not.
>
> Oracle has two ways of making money from the InnoDB acquisition:
> 1. They charge for InnoDB licenses and thereby remove MySQL's profit.
> MySQL will probably die if they do this and their customers will seek
> alternatives. I think PostgreSQL is a far more likely alternative then
> Oracle. Especially if Oracle is the one who provokes the change.
> 2. They buy MySQL and charge the customers what they are charged
> today. Everyone is happy and Oracle just expanded their customer base.

#2 could be done after #1. Depending on the way Oracle proceeds, they
might be able to do this without pissing off the community too much.

An extreme (and illegal) example of this sort of behavior was when AT&T
executives used to provide a list of telco's they were interested in
purchasing to J.P. Morgan and then J.P. Morgan would make sure their
loans were called, bankrupting comptetitors, so AT&T could purchase them
for pennies on the dollar (this was a major part of AT&T's earlier
antitrust case, which resulted in a consent decree in 1956).

>
>
>> Until MySQL has to re-negotiate their contract with
>> Inno^H^H^H^HOracle, its all speculation though ... don't know when
>> that comes due, but their might be enough time between now and then
>> for MySQL to recover on their own (ie. come up with an alternative to
>> InnoDB) ...
>>
> In which case Oracle would gain nothing from its purchase of InnoDB. I
> don't see that as a very likely scenario.

I think that MySQL was blindsided by this. Just a little before this,
they said that they wanted to be the Ikea of the database market in part
because they didn't want to attract Oracle's attention...

Best Wishes,

greg(at)turnstep(dot)com ("Greg Sabino Mullane") writes:
>> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
>
> No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> sell to Oracle.

A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.

A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...
--
(reverse (concatenate 'string "gro.mca" "@" "enworbbc"))
http://cbbrowne.com/info/spreadsheets.html
Rules of the Evil Overlord #25. "No matter how well it would perform,
I will never construct any sort of machinery which is completely
indestructible except for one small and virtually inaccessible
vulnerable spot." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>

Scott Marlowe wrote:

>I'd bet they read plenty, but don't necessarily understand a lot,
>judging by their pitiful fud campaign when Afilias proposed using
>postgresql as a database behind .org. They tried to say PostgreSQL
>didn't support transactions. So, while we may be on their screens, and
>I'm sure some marketeer there tries to keep up with some of the traffic
>here, the actual comprehension seems pretty low judging by their past
>statements.
>
>Actually, I kinda hope it stays that way.
>
>
Ok. I should have said "serious target." MySQL has been a serious
target for a number of years. I think we are still the unknown bugaboo
to them.

I.e. I see no evidence that Oracle is taking the PostgreSQL threat
seriously, and the FUD campaign is more evidence that they don't (there
are plenty of areas where Oracle has an edge over PostgreSQL-- the idea
that "PostgreSQL doesn't support transactions" can only indicate that
this was a cursory and hasty attack and maybe even a wakeup call for
them, or maybe they got us mixed up with MySQL w/MyISAM). The real
question is whether after the .org campaign occurred, we are now a
higher-profile target that is taken more seriously. Personally, I would
doubt it for reasons mentioned below.

The thing is, we may be a head-to-head competitor with Oracle in many
areas, but we are pretty minor compared to Sybase, Microsoft, and IBM at
the moment. I.e. while we are an emerging threat, Oracle has plenty of
clear and present threats to its market share to deal with. Therefore,
I am willing to bet that we are probably a distant target, somewhere
after Ingress II and maybe even Firebird/Interbase. This is based on
the assumption that in any significantly large corporation, there will
be a lot of legacy competitive effort and that the rampup time to look
at new threats is really pretty large. I.e. at Microsoft when I left
(2003), Java and Sun were still higher competitive priorities than Linux
(and still very much in a middle-phase). From what I have read after
leaving, I think that Microsoft's strategy is still in an opening phase
mostly consisting of GetTheFUD and internal product research.

MySQL is different. They established a large user base early on, and
people have a tendency (wrongly) to think of them as The Open Source
RDBMS. So I am willing to be that Oracle has been ramping up a
competitive strategy against them for at least five years (they showed a
clear competitive strategy against them as early as 2000). The fact
that they are an easier target complicates matters for them, but I think
that this is more of a transition to an end-game strategy by Oracle than
anything else.

I will be worried if and when Oracle demonstrates any intelligent
competitive strategy against us. A poorly orchestrated and hasty FUD
campaign does not qualify.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

On Fri, Oct 14, 2005 at 02:28:52PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>
> > But what if they came in sideways and bought Command Prompt?
>
> Well then I would be sitting on a beach in New Zealend with an umbrella
> drink :)
>
> > (As an
> > example.) You could do a lot more to destroy PostgreSQL's market in the
> > business world by destroying the various support mechanisms. Your
> > business is much closer to eating their lunch than PostgreSQL itself.
>
> That is a farily good point but one of the beautiful things about Open
> Source is that even if they bought Command Prompt, they would also have
> to buy Pervasive and EnterpriseDB and GreenPlum and SRA.
>
> And then -- by doing so they are just opening the market for a new set
> of companies to start supporting PostgreSQL.
>
> > So what if they bought Command Prompt (or someone else like it) and then
> > cut it off at the knees? No one ever accused Larry Ellison of being
> > dumb ... different strategies for different opponents.
>
> No, Larry isn't dumb. You don't get to be the second richest man in the
> world by being dumb. However he is very strategic and I don't see (at
> this point) a strategic reason to attack PostgreSQL via Oracle.
>
> PostgreSQL at this point is actually a good value add to the Oracle
> proposition. In 5 years we are probably going to be a immediate direct
> threat but not right now.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
>
>
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
> --
> Your PostgreSQL solutions company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.800.492.2240
> PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Programming, 24x7 support
> Managed Services, Shared and Dedicated Hosting
> Co-Authors: plPHP, plPerlNG - http://www.commandprompt.com/
>

The scenario that no one has mentioned wrt postgresql and oracle is
that oracle can take the source code, branch it or not and support it.
If they branch, it will have less credibility and it will become "interesting".
But support money from a big name company (Oracle) should be
forthcoming in either case.

Long term that does not help the support companies, like mine and those
mentioned above. Or maybe it does because we're smaller and faster.

--elein
--------------------------------------------------------------
elein(at)varlena(dot)com Varlena, LLC www.varlena.com
(510)655-2584(o) (510)543-6079(c)

PostgreSQL Consulting, Support & Training

PostgreSQL General Bits http://www.varlena.com/GeneralBits/
--------------------------------------------------------------
AIM: varlenallc Yahoo: AElein Skype: varlenallc
--------------------------------------------------------------
I have always depended on the [QA] of strangers.

Chris Browne wrote:

>tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) writes:
>
>
>>I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of
>>this, assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to
>>their core business. The most they can do is force MySQL AB to
>>waste a year or so reimplementing something equivalent to InnoDB;
>>which would hurt them but it's hardly likely to kill them. But with
>>your scenario Oracle might actually make money out of the deal,
>>which makes it make some sense.
>>
>>
>
>Well, Jan and I were puzzling over the whole "why MaxDB?" thing, and
>the only way we were able to rationalize MySQL AB's involvement with
>THAT was the theory that MySQL AB wants to become an alternative DB
>backend vendor for SAP R/3.
>
>Oracle is the main player there, and has been for a long time.
>
>The whole thing about SAP AG buying up SAP-DB (which has become MaxDB)
>was that they were "gaming" with Oracle over database licenses.
>Having their own "free" alternative to Oracle represented a useful
>tool when in license negotiations.
>
>
Interesting thought. It also explains Oracle's additional market
pressure against MySQL AB....

>Where MySQL AB seems to fit into this is that they have a "barely
>functional" DBMS engine that nonetheless happens to be nearly
>functional enough to be usable as a backend for SAP R/3.
>
>They were pretty proudly announcing at OSCON 2005 that they had enough
>functionality to support R/3...
>
>
Was this MaxDB or MySQL?

>If MySQL AB has an *actively maintained* (unlike SAP-DB) database
>engine, that makes them attractive to SAP AG whether as a business
>partner or as a buyout target. Either could be quite attractive to
>owners and venture capital providers alike.
>
>Of course, if the "ability to support R/3" requires InnoDB stuff, then
>this means Oracle just did a nice job of cutting off this strategy...
>
>
Even if it doesn't require InnoDB... Cast a long enough shadow on MySQL
AB and that active maintenance of MaxDB will be harder to justify. I.e.
death by asphyxiation will kill any project or company. My predictions
are that Oracle will try to drive up the costs of MySQL and then when
the company starts to flounder, will buy it for pennies on the dollar.
If they are actively maintaining MaxDB, well, this just cut the knees
out from under that.

Also, what Oracle has done is cast enough of a shadow on MySQL to make
them a very unattractive buyout target. This is a very interesting move
by Oracle... It will be interesting to see where it goes....

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

Chris Browne <cbbrowne(at)acm(dot)org> writes:
> tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) writes:
>> I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of
>> this, assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to
>> their core business.

> [ snip ]

> Of course, if the "ability to support R/3" requires InnoDB stuff, then
> this means Oracle just did a nice job of cutting off this strategy...

Ah-hah. *Now* it's all clear: an alternative to Oracle for SAP would
definitely be a strong threat to Oracle's bottom line. I think we just
found the real motivation.

(BTW, has anyone looked lately to see how far away Postgres is from
being able to run SAP?)

regards, tom lane

On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 11:20:00AM -0700, elein wrote:
> The scenario that no one has mentioned wrt postgresql and oracle is
> that oracle can take the source code, branch it or not and support it.
> If they branch, it will have less credibility and it will become "interesting".
> But support money from a big name company (Oracle) should be
> forthcoming in either case.
>
> Long term that does not help the support companies, like mine and those
> mentioned above. Or maybe it does because we're smaller and faster.

I suspect that if Oracle were to actually formally endorse PostgreSQL by
offering support that people would be falling all over themselves to
find out what "this PostgreSQL thing" was all about. It would probably
be a win for everyone already doing work with PostgreSQL; existing
customers probably wouldn't be motivated enough to change support
providers just because it's Oracle, and meanwhile many people would look
to see who else was offering Oracle support.

Of course, Oracle could tank the market by offering support at
un-competitive prices, but I can't think of a reason for them to do that
off the top of my head.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

On Monday 17 October 2005 14:17, Chris Browne wrote:
> greg(at)turnstep(dot)com ("Greg Sabino Mullane") writes:
> >> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
> >
> > No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> > sell to Oracle.
>
> A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
> capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.
>
> A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...

Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.

"Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com> writes:
> Of course, Oracle could tank the market by offering support at
> un-competitive prices, but I can't think of a reason for them to do that
> off the top of my head.

They might hope that they could drive the existing support companies out
of business (assuming they didn't get convicted of antitrust violations
first --- which would be an open-and-shut case, but with the Republicans
in office they probably wouldn't get prosecuted :-(). Then they raise
their rates to make lotsa money, or maybe they'd think they could drop
support at that point and the project would die for lack of commercial
support. (They seem to understand open-source poorly enough that they
might think that would happen.)

I don't see any of this happening though. As suggested upthread,
the very *last* thing Oracle wants is to raise the visibility and
credibility of Postgres by a couple of orders of magnitude --- which
is exactly what they'd be doing by offering support for it, even if
the support was only temporary. The effects of getting the word out
would persist long afterwards.

regards, tom lane

elein wrote:

>
>The scenario that no one has mentioned wrt postgresql and oracle is
>that oracle can take the source code, branch it or not and support it.
>If they branch, it will have less credibility and it will become "interesting".
>But support money from a big name company (Oracle) should be
>forthcoming in either case.
>
>Long term that does not help the support companies, like mine and those
>mentioned above. Or maybe it does because we're smaller and faster.
>
>
It could work both ways. I am sure that if that happened, that Oracle
would be contributing to the PostgreSQL code base in some ways.
However, this would be somewhat bad for them because they would be
commoditizing their flagship product, but Oracle is mostly a services
business and would probably be able to make the transition relatively
well. The bigger deal would be for companies like EnterpriseDB.

OTOH, would you rather deal with the likes of Larry Ellison and his
peons or the likes of you, Josh (both of them), etc?

I think Oracle will start marketing PostgreSQL sometime after IBM jumps
on ship. But don't expect either soon.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 03:22:49PM -0400, Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 17 October 2005 14:17, Chris Browne wrote:
> > greg(at)turnstep(dot)com ("Greg Sabino Mullane") writes:
> > >> I think Oracle will buy MySQL too eventually
> > >
> > > No, MySQL AB is a private company and would probably never
> > > sell to Oracle.
> >
> > A significant portion of it belongs to a sizable set of venture
> > capital organizations to whom money talks pretty loudly.
> >
> > A good offer from Oracle ought to be attractive to them...
>
> Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.

One can always hope... it would allow a friend of mine at a company with
some funding from a MySQL investor to ditch MySQL.
--
Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby(at)pervasive(dot)com
Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117
vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461

Tom Lane wrote:

> (BTW, has anyone looked lately to see how far away Postgres is from
> being able to run SAP?)

It runs OpenMFG just fine ;-)

Tom Lane wrote:
> Chris Browne <cbbrowne(at)acm(dot)org> writes:
>> Of course, if the "ability to support R/3" ...
> Ah-hah. *Now* it's all clear: an alternative to Oracle for SAP...

Speaking of SAP...

Jeff Nolan, a Venture Capitalists from SAP Ventures
(http://www.sap.com/company/sapventures/contacts/index.epx)
has been following the Oracle/Innobase acquisition, and has some
rumors and speculation around the events.

For one, he's heard $5-$6 million and that MySQL has some guarantees
on their Innobase contract:
http://sapventures.typepad.com/main/2005/10/how_much_did_or.html

and had some speculation of petty bickering between Benchmark (the
lead VC in MySQL's previous round) and a partner from Oracle (Lane)
at a rival firm:
http://sapventures.typepad.com/main/2005/10/innobase_ray_la.html
Marten Mickos himself responded and denied that rumor, and he
later retracted that speculation.

tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) writes:

> Chris Browne <cbbrowne(at)acm(dot)org> writes:
>> tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us (Tom Lane) writes:
>>> I've been trying to figure out what it is that Oracle gets out of
>>> this, assuming that they don't see MySQL as a serious threat to
>>> their core business.
>
>> [ snip ]
>
>> Of course, if the "ability to support R/3" requires InnoDB stuff, then
>> this means Oracle just did a nice job of cutting off this strategy...
>
> Ah-hah. *Now* it's all clear: an alternative to Oracle for SAP would
> definitely be a strong threat to Oracle's bottom line. I think we just
> found the real motivation.
>
> (BTW, has anyone looked lately to see how far away Postgres is from
> being able to run SAP?)

I'd think that the main issue is that of attracting interest from SAP
AG to do a port.

They don't require triggers, RI, stored procedures, nor, if I recall,
views.

Sybase was long NOT supportable due to it not having row locks, but
rather only page locks. That drove functionality added to Microsoft
SQL Server back in the late '90s.

It's _possible_ that MVCC could cause some heartburn, though since
Oracle and DB2 both have added forms of this, I kind of doubt it.

I don't expect that Postgres is missing anything of importance aside
from there being a "champion" with budgetary discretion for the $8M
task of preparing a port. R/3 has fairly separate "kernels" for each
DBMS that it supports, and that's not a small thing.

It's _not_ like in the late '90s where internal developers had
"skunkworks" ports of Oracle/Informix/DB2 to Linux where they were
able to report "Oh, we compiled it one weekend and it found that it
just simply works." Porting the R/3 kernel to another DBMS would
involve things akin to:
- Coding an internal layer that knows to talk to libpq
- Knowing the different ways of handling R/3 weirdities like cluster
tables (where I'd bet money that DEFINE TYPE would make life easier
in a PostgreSQL port...)
- Awareness of the variations in locking semantics and such

The kernel is a real heavyweight, so a port would require quite a lot
of effort.
--
(format nil "~S(at)~S" "cbbrowne" "ntlug.org")
http://cbbrowne.com/info/linuxdistributions.html
"The test of a principle is whether it applies even to people you
don't like." -- Henry Spencer

Tom Lane wrote:

>
>
>They might hope that they could drive the existing support companies out
>of business (assuming they didn't get convicted of antitrust violations
>first --- which would be an open-and-shut case, but with the Republicans
>in office they probably wouldn't get prosecuted :-().
>
Sort of off-topic but after actually reading up on notable antitrust
cases (such as AT&T), I think that the current situation wrt Microsoft
is exactly how antitrust law works best in our legal system. And anyone
who thinks that Microsoft effectively put this behind them has not been
following Novell v. Microsoft and a myriad of other cases. Because
Microsoft has lost their case, certain facts cannot be litigated,
meaning that it is now open season on suing Microsoft for antitrust
violations.... (IANAL, but you can ask one about "collateral estoppel"
which is a really nasty ball of wax for Microsoft at the moment). The
current settlement really was forced on the DoJ by the appeals court.
This is one area where Microsoft would have been better off (and we
might be worse off) had they been broken up. For example, AMD faces a
much harder antitrust case against Intel than Novel does against
Microsoft for the reason that Intel has settled all previous antitrust
cases without admitting guilt. Don't think so? Why do you think
Microsoft settled IBM's antitrust claims before the lawsuit was even
filed (normally people at least go through pretrial motions to see how
much of the complaint they can get dropped before settling)? Indeed I
have personally wondered if Microsoft opened themselves up to more
lawsuits by recommending that Baystar invest in SCO....

As for Oracle, they don't exactly have a steller reputation. However,
they hopefully have enough to sense to avoid antitrust cases they could
lose. At least in the past, their prior questionable actions have been
of generally unfair business practices such as industrial espionage
(didn't they hire the firm that got the janatorial contract at Microsoft
to do dumpster-diving for them in 1999 or so).

But the biggest issue for them is that other parties (such as IBM and
Microsoft) have been making substantial inroads into Oracle's core
market. Spend too much in the way of resources attacking us and they
divert resources from the clear dangers that they have from large
commercial competitors.

> Then they raise
>their rates to make lotsa money, or maybe they'd think they could drop
>support at that point and the project would die for lack of commercial
>support. (They seem to understand open-source poorly enough that they
>might think that would happen.)
>
>
Who knows? Maybe they will resort to dumpster-diving to try to discover
our super-secret-source-code... ;-)

>I don't see any of this happening though. As suggested upthread,
>the very *last* thing Oracle wants is to raise the visibility and
>credibility of Postgres by a couple of orders of magnitude --- which
>is exactly what they'd be doing by offering support for it, even if
>the support was only temporary. The effects of getting the word out
>would persist long afterwards.
>
>
I would suggest that Oracle has not formed a strategy for outcompeting
us yet, and it may be several years before they take the threat we pose
seriously enough to really start work on it. I would suspect that we
are treated as "one of a crowd of mid-size RDBMS competitors," and have
not been singled out yet for special treatment (MySQL was singled out in
2000 at the latest). Oracle's current strategy seems to be in trying to
push things like parallel queries, grid computing, etc. as a way of
providing scalability and room for growth, providing advantages for
certain scenarios. They could then use the high-end to subsidize the
low end, like Sun does with Solaris (though I think that this is a
losing strategy and Microsoft's inverse strategy of subsidizing the
high-end with the commodity market is ultimately more effective).

Maybe when Bizgres MPP comes out things will change ;-)

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers

Robert Bernier wrote:

>
>
>Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
>
>
Why not? One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
place would have any adverse effect on competition. Are competitors
then never allowed to merge in the EU? Besides who would have standing
to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
something pretty fundamental.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
Metatron Technology Consulting

On Monday 17 October 2005 17:47, Chris Travers wrote:
> Robert Bernier wrote:
> >Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it
> > would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
>
> Why not? One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
> place would have any adverse effect on competition. Are competitors
> then never allowed to merge in the EU? Besides who would have standing
> to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
> something pretty fundamental.

In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is not allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition

On Monday 17 October 2005 18:09, Robert Bernier wrote:
> On Monday 17 October 2005 17:47, Chris Travers wrote:
> > Robert Bernier wrote:
> > >Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it
> > > would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
> >
> > Why not? One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
> > place would have any adverse effect on competition. Are competitors
> > then never allowed to merge in the EU? Besides who would have standing
> > to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
> > something pretty fundamental.
>
> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is not
> allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition
>

By that definition no company could ever buy any other company even if they
wanted a mutual merger, so I don't think that is the case. Oracle buying
my$ql wouldn't even cause the legislature to blink... if you dont believe me
just look at the track record of oracle with peoplesoft/sap, a market where
there really isn't much competition, unlike the db market where there are a
least a dozen legitimate competitors in the field. More importantly, my$ql
has said themselves numerous times they "don't compete with oracle" so using
there own words you can't put oracle on an anti-competitive practice
(whoops!).

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

On Mon, 17 Oct 2005, Robert Treat wrote:

> On Monday 17 October 2005 18:09, Robert Bernier wrote:
>> On Monday 17 October 2005 17:47, Chris Travers wrote:
>>> Robert Bernier wrote:
>>>> Hey, don't forget MySQL AB is a European company. This won't fly like it
>>>> would in the US, the anti-trust laws are stricter.
>>>
>>> Why not? One would be hard to argue that removing MySQL from the market
>>> place would have any adverse effect on competition. Are competitors
>>> then never allowed to merge in the EU? Besides who would have standing
>>> to sue? IANAL though and I am an American so I could misunderstand
>>> something pretty fundamental.
>>
>> In canada we have a thing called the competition bureau, a company is not
>> allowed to buy another company if its to reduce competition
>>
>
> By that definition no company could ever buy any other company even if they
> wanted a mutual merger, so I don't think that is the case.

And, actually, that isn't the case (or, at least, there are ways around
it) ... two of Canada's largest Nickel mines in Sudbury just merged (to
the chagrin of their respective unions) ... if that isn't reducing
competition, I'm not sure what is :)

----
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Email: scrappy(at)hub(dot)org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664