Oracle's open source buying spree (NewsForge)

[Posted February 16, 2006 by cook]

Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier covers the issue of large corporations controlling open-source projects. "When asked, MySQL CEO Marten Mickos says that the company's ambition is "a successful independent existence" and called Oracle's purchase of Sleepycat "a great validation of the power of open source. We have been predicting for a long time that the incumbent vendors will adopt open source in some form: by acquiring companies, by launching open source initiatives, and by opensourcing old closed source products. This is all in line with that." Not everyone is as sanguine about Oracle's buying spree as Mickos. PostgreSQL developer Josh Berkus has worried for years about the "perils of corporate-owned open source" and says that Oracle's acquisition of Sleepycat "is a perfect case in point.""