Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle [LWN.net]

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 15, 2009 16:26 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454)
Parent article: Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

While the GPL protects the code, it does not protect the MySQL trademark. And MySQL's main value today is a positive brand recognized by many decision makers all around the world.

Forking MySQL if Oracle mismanages it is easy. Building another brand with the level of acceptability MySQL has today is a multi-year risky project.

Oracle could effectively kill the competition MySQL offers it in the conservative wealthy Enterprise market by restricting use of the MySQL brand. And this is where MySQL has been hurting Oracle most (cash cow of corporate customers that use oracle everywhere from big DBs to small because that's the only solution that got approved at all levels. That is, until the MySQL name managed to carve a place there too)

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Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 15, 2009 16:48 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (6 responses)

I think the user base would be perfectly able to understand a dispute between the creative talent in the project and the owner of the name, and (particularly if Sun simply stopped doing anything with it) would be perfectly willing to use "the database formerly known as MySQL" and would recognize it as the spiritual continuation of the project.

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 15, 2009 16:52 UTC (Tue) by bangert (subscriber, #28342) [Link]

As I try to argue below, Widenius' actions make me believe this is what he
is preparing for.

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 15, 2009 18:19 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (3 responses)

The user base would just stop using MySQL and wait a few years for the dust to settle and see if a fork with a reliable management and reliable support structure emerges. It's as simple as that, the savings in using a free database are not worth the risk of betting on the wrong horse.

That's what the MySQL name means today: reliable project. No-risk choice. And not reliable because the code is good, reliable because of market acceptance, and number of concurring reports it works in the field.

Seeing the number of vultures circling MySQL now that Oracle is likely to get its hands on it, the chances for a single fork to emerge quickly are very low. Everyone is going to launch its own fork, and fight for the free database crown with Oracle laughing on the sidelines. (see how long it took for Centos to emerge as the "free" whitebox RHEL clone, how many promising projects went nowhere, and they were not aggressively fighting each other for mindshare).

Corporate market hates choices. Winner takes all. Oracle, RHEL, Ubuntu, are all example where a single actor cashed on customer unwillingness to choose between multiple similar choices. Brand is a very strong factor, more than code quality.

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 15, 2009 19:52 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (2 responses)

I think the main concern really is the "reliable support structure" aspect; I don't think being named "MySQL" is actually at all relevant to that assessment. What matters is that the software under active development is supported by established organizations providing support. This is actually probably the biggest concern, because the most obvious organization providing support is the one Oracle is buying (although other companies provide commercial support for MySQL). I think the fact that this organization is also the one that holds the trademarks isn't a major factor.

As far as development is concerned, I think that, if Oracle were to become too hard to work with, the community would take it over with approximately the efficiency that X.org took over from XFree86. If you've got a group of people who know each other as the development community, they're likely to keep working together. And, if Oracle owns the bulk of the copyrights and is unresponsive, there is no crown (in terms of a codebase that some branch can offer non-GPL licenses to) to fight over. It's less likely that everybody would try to take over the project from themselves than that everybody would try to sucker somebody else into doing the project administration.

Of course, there's still the question of whether third-party corporate support organizations would declare the Oracle branch dead and support the community branch instead. But I could easily see OpenLogic telling their customers, "Starting with the next release, MySQL as we support it has been renamed to OurSQL. It is the same software and the same contracts apply to it." And the corporate market would say, "Whatever. We still think our cell phones are Cingular. As long as our business relationships stay valid, it doesn't matter." And, of course, there's the issue that, if Oracle stops their MySQL development, the version that their support organization supports presumably also stops, and that support organization is probably the most significant one currently.

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 15, 2009 20:21 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

XFree86 was never sold as a distinct product. Entities that used it got it as part of a larger whole, which is why the transition was graceful. Only technical people had to know about it.

MySQL's case is a lot more complex

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 17, 2009 4:18 UTC (Thu) by nowster (subscriber, #67) [Link]

Debian would probably call it IceSQuirreL. :-)

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 18, 2009 10:33 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

The problem are not the user base, but their management who have to sign off usage of a potential MySQL successor in enterprise environments.

I see this problem right currently at one of my customers, where I wanted to migrate their old TWiki to FOSWiki. That name change makes the managers suspicious.