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Oracle buys Sleepycat Software
Oracle has announced the acquisition of long-time open source database supplier Sleepycat Software. "Sleepycat Software's Berkeley DB is the most widely used open source
database in the world with deployments estimated at more than 200 million.
Berkeley DB is distributed under a dual license model, i.e. available under a
public license and also available under a commercial license. Well-known open
source projects such as the Linux and BSD UNIX operating systems, Apache web
server, OpenLDAP directory, OpenOffice productivity software, and many others
embed Berkeley DB technology." Terms not disclosed. Also not disclosed is whether there will be any changes in the Berkeley DB licensing terms.
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Oracle buys Sleepycat Software Posted Feb 14, 2006 15:21 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] If there *are* changes to the licensing terms, Berkeley DB is not such high-level rocket science that it's impossible to fork, or, even (in extremis) reimplement. Most of its more high-end features aren't used by 90% of the library's client programs anyway: the majority just want a keyword/value mapping and don't care about transactions and such things.
(Subversion might be discomfited, but Subversion had enough trouble with Berkeley DB that the FSFS backend has been recommended for some time now. If the worst comes to the worst, Subversion could just drop DB backend support and require a svnadmin dump/reload cycle for users of that backend.)
Oracle aren't idiots and doubtless know this, so it's a bit unlikely that the terms will change. (If they changed them, wouldn't they need permission from all the copyright holders anyway? Sleepycat didn't demand copyright assignments...)
What I *can* see happening is Oracle adding flashy new features (e.g., well, Oracle integration :) ) to a proprietary fork, but the license will let them do that anyway, and as most of the db's free clients don't need even the flashy features that it's got right now, it wouldn't even hurt much if they did so.
Oracle buys Sleepycat Software Posted Feb 14, 2006 16:31 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] Subversion is not the only project fed up with BDB quirks.
Red Hat has already switched its rpm backend from BDB to sqllite (a direct side effect is sqllite python and perl bindings are critical and available to other apps on Fedora now). BDB has been loosing mindshare lately.
reimplement... don't care... Posted Feb 14, 2006 20:22 UTC (Tue) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] Really-really? (c)
Seemingly you don't even know enough of Sleepycat history, judging from "contributors" you mention. Please google up some old winterspeak.com interview with them, quite interesting reading.
reimplement... don't care... Posted Feb 14, 2006 22:26 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] I have trouble believing that there have been *no* contributors not now employed by Sleepycat. Is that really the case?
InnoDB + BerkeleyDB ... Posted Feb 14, 2006 15:50 UTC (Tue) by DG (subscriber, #16978) [Link] No doubt Oracle could use this for extra leverage over MySQL.
InnoDB and BerkeleyDB being both owned by Oracle and forming two of the three transactional backends in MySQL.
InnoDB + BerkeleyDB ... Posted Feb 14, 2006 18:15 UTC (Tue) by jonabbey (subscriber, #2736) [Link] Ugh, that's what they're up to, undoubtedly.
InnoDB + BerkeleyDB ... Posted Feb 15, 2006 0:54 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link] Not sure I would agree with "Ugh".
Both InnoDB and BDB are Open Source. MySQL AB has made some bad decisions:
1. Depending upon a proprietary license to the GPL'd InnoDB
2. Looking to enhance DBD to replace InnoDB after Oracle bought InnoBase.
Nothing that has happened is necessarily bad for the Open Source MySQL.
This is only bad for MySQL AB, whose business model rests upon having a proprietary license with some table engine provider (with the requisite capabilities) that allows them to sell proprietary licenses to their customers.
Oracle could take BDB and license new enhancements under GPL or LGPL as appropriate, refuse to grant a proprietary license to MySQL AB (having seen the light of OSS) and it would be just as bad for MySQL AB, and the Open Source community would rightly love them (Oracle) for it.
...MySQL? Posted Feb 14, 2006 20:27 UTC (Tue) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link] Maybe it's kind of corporate invitation for some company to sell itself on nice terms?
Will Oracle play nice? Posted Feb 14, 2006 16:26 UTC (Tue) by glynmoody (guest, #34032) [Link] Against the background of rumours that Oracle will also buy JBoss and Zend, the larger question is whether Oracle will play nice with the open source community - and what will happen if it doesn't?In particular, it will be interesting to compare its actions with those of IBM, which seems to have adapted surprisingly well to life within the free software world.
Well... Posted Feb 14, 2006 19:32 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] It's hard to tell, but looking at the core business of both companies it looks like they are very different. IBM used to sell much more hardware than software; and lately more services than hardware and software combined. Transitioning to Linux the money they lose in software licenses can be more than offset by new revenues. Their markets are very specialized, similar to what might happen to SAP actually; it is often difficult to get in there.Oracle sells, to my understanding, software and services; but it is really more consulting on their highly proprietary product and in their own captive market. If they transition to free software, where everyone can have the same expertise as them, it is hard to see how they can play along and yet differentiate themselves on the generic database market. But, since I speak from hearsay and not experience, I would really like to hear from others with more solid knowledge.
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