LWN: Comments on "Lumsden: OpenSolaris canceled"

There are bigger difference...

khim — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:46:58 +0000

The only difference is that Oracle is interested in milking Android for all it can get, and wouldn't expend the effort on going after Perl, Postgres or some MySQL fork. Simply because those projects haven't got the bread to line Oracle's spacious pockets.

This is not the only difference and not even the most important. Sun traditionally demanded copyright assignment for contributions. It was always problematic practice but as long as these assignments were only used to sell proprietary offerings to help Sun to stay afloat it was justifiable to some degree. But now it's just stupid: Oracle will sue you for infringement while still retaining right for your work. Why will you want this?

In a sense it means that btrfs is safe: this is rare Oracle-started project which is not also Oracle-owned. But most other projects are not safe and they must be forked or abandoned.

They are not that stupid...

khim — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:35:04 +0000

Well, any success on this front will be short-lived. Google can not just go and drop Java-based development tools, but it can switch Android to C++ or Go in two or three years. Even if Oracle wins in court, it loses: it gets paid for these two or three years quite handsomely but ultimately it loses both smart phone market (because Java tools are eradicated) and Java market (because it becomes irrelevant).

CDDL leaks

TRS-80 — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:35:36 +0000

Yeah, I know Oracle can legally relicense to whatever they want. My comment about feasibility is to do with the effort of going through every file and stripping the CDDL header in the OTN version, then putting it back in the release version.

CDDL leaks

steffen780 — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 20:42:07 +0000

IANAL, but the copyright owner has the right to publish materials under any legal license. Whilst Oracle is (should) not be able to revoke existing licenses (ie. the CDDL of code already published) they're well within their rights to also publish that code, or improved versions of it, under any license they see fit. The same applies to the GPL etc., even the BSD license. The difference with the BSD license is that everyone has that right, "Apple's" MacOS X/iPhoneOS being the most high profile (ab-)user of this right.

Please reread what I wrote...

vonbrand — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:24:14 +0000

Any addition to any project is potential patent grief. If you added some kind of database written in elisp to Emacs just the same as if you extend MySQL or Postgres, or ran afoul of some patent on code optimization in GCC, or doing JIT on Perl's intermediate code.

The only difference is that Oracle is interested in milking Android for all it can get, and wouldn't expend the effort on going after Perl, Postgres or some MySQL fork. Simply because those projects haven't got the bread to line Oracle's spacious pockets.

They are killing Java

vonbrand — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:10:00 +0000

A succulent piece of the smart phone market (and others to follow)? I just heard that a fourth of new phones sold are Android-powered right now, ahead of Apple and others.

When Oracle just acts like Google

TRS-80 — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:15:43 +0000

The difference is, Android has never been developed as a community project, while OpenSolaris has. And back in February Oracle said

[12:09] <DanR> Oracle will continue to make OpenSolaris available as open source, and Oracle will continue to actively support and participate in the community
[12:09] <DanR> Oracle is investing more in Solaris than Sun did prior to the acquisition, and will continue to contribute technologies to OpenSolaris, as Oracle already does for many other open source projects
[12:14] <DanR> Oracle will also continue to deliver OpenSolaris releases, including the upcoming OpenSolaris 2010.03 release.
[12:22] <DanR> ptribble: Oracle will continue to develop technologies in the open, as we do today. There may be some things we choose not to open source going forward, similar to how MySQL manages certain value add at the top of the stack. It's important to understand the plan now is to deliver value again out of our IP investment, while at the same time measuring that with continuing to deliver...

Perhaps not evidence of evil, but definitely evidence of going back on their word.

btrfs isn't doomed ;)

nicooo — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 17:04:29 +0000

> Oracle definitely understands the importance of community in keeping the project alive and useful.

I think they should make a public statement if they want to put a stop to the conspiracy theories that are popping up.

CDDL leaks

TRS-80 — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:38:16 +0000

Snoracle still owns the copyright, so the OTN source could be stripped of the CDDL. Or OTN members could sign a contract saying they won't redistribute it. I've no idea how feasible either of these possibilities is.

btrfs isn't doomed ;)

masoncl — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:28:47 +0000

I think a good metric is to look at non-oracle copyrights in the btrfs sources. Basically btrfs was done from day one as a project derived from the kernel and with significant contributions from companies other than Oracle.

This was done for practical reasons, it's really the easiest way to make a Linux filesystem these days. Also, when you try to make something general purpose, you end up needing a lot of help...Linux has a lot of purposes.

The end result is that Btrfs is a community project where someone at Oracle is the maintainer. I try very hard to be inclusive and while I don't always succeed in keeping up with the contributions, Oracle definitely understands the importance of community in keeping the project alive and useful.

Btrfs isn't unique inside of Oracle, ocfs2 is a good example of a more established project quietly trying to do the right thing.

-chris

Coming soon...

SEJeff — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:34:53 +0000

But it can't be magical... That word is trademarked by Apple

Lumsden: OpenSolaris canceled

TRS-80 — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:22:41 +0000

There will "Solaris 11 Express" binary-only releases, which is how things worked before OpenSolaris, so you can get an idea of what features will be there, just you won't get the source until the final release.

When Oracle just acts like Google

alceste — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:36:53 +0000

As far as I can understand, the leaked memo shows that Oracle is refocusing its strategy around Solaris - but it does not (yet) mean that Solaris 11 will be turned into a completely proprietary operating system. I think that it is necessary to make a clear distinction between the development model of the OS, and its license.

Take, for example, the difference between Google's Android and Intel/Nokia's MeeGo.

Android is developed internally by Google, and the "community" receives occasional code dumps. Only a few Google commercial partners are allowed to follow its daily development and take technical decisions. Google made this choice it in order to keep its commercial advantage over its competitors: if they want an up-to-date Android system, they have to sign (and pay) a commercial partnership with Google. Otherwise, they'll have to either make their own fork of the project, or wait for the next public release --- that will be made available on the public repositories only when updated smartphones will have reached the stores.

On the other hand, MeeGo development happens on public repositories, using a public infrastructure, and several technical decisions are taken after public discussion. Intel/Nokia made this choice in order to speed up MeeGo adoption, even if competitors will be able to ship their products with the same software. It is the only possible way to gain some market share against Android.

Now, going back to Solaris: just take the previous two paragraphs, and replace "Android" and "Google" with "Solaris" and "Oracle". And replace "MeeGo" and "Intel/Nokia" with "Illumos" and "Nexenta/Belenix/etc...".

*If* the Oracle memo is not revised later, then Solaris 11 will still be (mostly) free software, as much as Android. And Illumos will be free software as much as MeeGo.

In other words, I would not use the Solaris issue as a proof that Oracle is "evil", unless Android is also considered a proof that Google is "evil" as well. (The Java issue, of course, is just another can of worms, and should not be confused with Solaris development decisions --- at least IMHO...).

CDDL leaks

marcH — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 13:33:04 +0000

Since most of the code will still be covered with the CDDL, could members of the Oracle Technology Network regularly, anonymously and legally leak the source?

Coming soon...

pboddie — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:15:29 +0000

I expect you'll find that the 'Solaris 11' being 1337...

Given the tendency of Sun and Oracle to invent new and bizarre names for existing products, sprinkling that unicorn dust all over for that extra sparkle, the odds are probably already quite short on the next release being known as "Solaris 1337".

This is not just matter of popularity...

khim — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:58:53 +0000

17,2% are cool, but they can become 1,72% very fast if handset manufacturers will switch to other platforms. There are only one company which committed most of it's resources to Android and can not switch easily: Motorola - and this is exactly the company which needs US market the most and will probably just die away without it. The fate of AndroidMarket is uncertain without US. And so on.

Google can not abandon US market right now. May be in a few years, but not today.

There are too many unknowns...

nim-nim — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:32:17 +0000

> Android is not popular enough abroad to just go and abandon US market.

Sources?

Mine say Android has reached 17,2% of worldwide smartphone sales lately, which would not be possible with the USA market alone (even with insane 100% local penetration)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20013433-94.html

There are too many unknowns...

khim — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 07:14:28 +0000

We'll know it... seven years in the future. The biggest short-term danger for Google is the injunction. If the court will not stop sales of Android phones then Google can do many things. Google is not TomTom, they have money to fight this fight, but if court will actually declare that "harm" is irreparable and stop sales of Android phones then Google will probably fold pretty soon: Android is not popular enough abroad to just go and abandon US market.

I'm not even sure Google can pay for Dalvik

klbrun — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 05:57:12 +0000

Since Google is fighting this, do you suppose the end result will be to further restrict software patents? I'm not saying Google plans to change software patents, it just might be the result of the legal process.

btrfs is doomed

nix — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:59:17 +0000

Fundamentally, Chris is the person who designed and wrote a lot of btrfs and who knows how it works. The fictional person called 'Oracle' knows none of that, so if Chris were to leave Oracle would have to scramble, but Chris could keep working on it (it is, after all, GPLv2) and the results would still benefit Oracle. I'm sure Oracle's management know this. Attacking btrfs is as stupid as attacking any other part of an OS critical for their databases. (Note: nobody is running Oracle DBs on Android phones.)

Who's left?

dmarti — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:26:26 +0000

(From a marketing POV, it looks like they're attempting to establish a Unique Selling Propsition for a product that's going into cash cow maintenance mode. And "The number one enterprise OS" is a better cash cow USP than "An open source POSIX OS, like Linux, but less so.")

btrfs is doomed

butlerm — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 17:02:08 +0000

> Not so, at least in the U.S: unless you are an employee whose employment
> contract explicitly assigns such rights to your employer

In the U.S., a work "prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment" is a "work for hire", the rights to which automatically go to the employer:

"In the case of a work made for hire, the employer or other person for whom the work was prepared is considered the author for purposes of this title, and, unless the parties have expressly agreed otherwise in a written instrument signed by them, owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright." (17 USC 201(b))

The default rules for contractors are different, i.e. the assignment (if any) must be made the other way.

btrfs is doomed

nicooo — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:05:09 +0000

% grep Oracle /usr/src/linux/fs/btrfs/* | wc
     44     391    3835

% grep "Chris Mason" /usr/src/linux/fs/btrfs/* | wc
      0       0       0

FreeBSD and others?

sgros — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:14:53 +0000

Why no one mentions what impact will this move, if it happens at all, have on all OSes that incorporated some of Solaris technologies?

DTrace is in MacOS X and FreeBSD, ZFS is in FreeBSD... now they won't have access to the latest developer release which means that when new Solaris version is released, along with the source, they'll need time to incorporate new features and bug fixes. In the mean time, they sit idle waiting for a new release... even worse yet, who'll fix the bugs in the mean time?

Java future is bleak...

Los__D — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:00:24 +0000

As I said, I don't really care about any of the three, but they all have a big following.

About Java, I think it is quite too early declaring it dead for FOSS (in fact I think it is way too early declaring anything about this situation), let's see how this plays out.

Microsoft was the only one...

khim — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:54:24 +0000

I don't know how Microsoft attained this #1 position in your chart.

They limit freedom in many ways (especially on XBox), but they are hardly unique in this - Apple, Nintendo, SONY, TiVo and countless others easily surpasses them there. The unique Microsoft sin is related to patents and FOSS Holy Grail: it was the only serious company which tries to stop reimplementations with patent lawsuit (TomTom and others). And till recently they were prepared to do the same to Sambe - only fines measured in hundred millions stopped them. That's how it was able to take back #1 slot in the list.

They're all talk, talk, talk. An executive says "GPL will rot your teeth" and meanwhile they're shipping an OS with (optional) GPL'd components and providing source on their FTP server.

Well, talk matter too and like Apple they only allow GPLv2, but these are minor issues. And you are right: Microsoft was losing lead over Apple fast in recent years, but before they were able to lose their #1 position to Apple Oracle implemented it's one-two combination... and the rest is history... Now they fight for #2 position :)

Just wanted to say...

tialaramex — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:24:07 +0000

I don't know how Microsoft attained this #1 position in your chart.

They're all talk, talk, talk. An executive says "GPL will rot your teeth" and meanwhile they're shipping an OS with (optional) GPL'd components and providing source on their FTP server.

Obviously Microsoft would benefit from the non-existence of Linux, but they'd benefit from the non-existence of Sony, or MySQL, or a thousand other things, they have their fingers in every pie.

Java future is bleak...

khim — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 10:12:50 +0000

I don't really see what's the big deal about Solaris: yes, it does some things better then Linux but it looks like it'll be easier to duplicate the functionality and add it to Linux rather then keep the whole separate OS around. There are IllumOS but it remains to be seen how many backers and users it'll attract. MySQL is already forked and we'll soon see how it goes. As for OpenOffice.org... the problem here is the most successful fork (Go-OO) is well-known but is Novel-backed so it's not clear how it can help in "battles with MS".

But Java... Java can be declared "dead for FOSS". Lots of Java users foolishly think they can avoid Google fate by using OpenJDK and even more of them just don't care (remember: Java was open-sourced just two years ago, before that it was proprietary... and it's backers were fine with it), but the problem here is the fact that Oracle is not Sun and it'll not spend billions on free product. Java will calcify more and more and over time will become the next COBOL. We can strike it out from the FOSS-relevant list of technologies.

The only hope is Android: if Google will be able to defend Android and Dalvik then we'll have truly open J*va-based platfrom (like we had *nix-based platform for years in Linux) and then the FOSS development can be directed this way. But this is small hope: Google may say bold words today, but if Oracle will be able to stop Android sales it'll be different tune altogether.

It's clear that people were abandoning the ship and Oracle was losing credibility in FOSS community for a long time, and now this process will speedup. But will it happen fast enough to save these projects from Oracle's iron patent-encrusted fist? This is open question...

Wel, you are right... kinda.

Los__D — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:34:01 +0000

Oh, agreed completely that it should be forked immediately. If it is big enough a target for Oracle to go after before enough has joined in, depends on a lot of factors, but I think that it usually wouldn't trigger Oracle until a lot of backers has already arrived.

While I'm not really all that interested myself, I think that MySQL, OO.org and OpenSolaris (well, at least Solaris) has proven big enough successes for great interest in a fork. Especially OO.org is also a key factor in the battles with MS.

If Java starts getting killed or closed by Oracle, I am sure that it will be forked, and that will be with a lot of companies behind it from the beginning. It is the core business for thousands of companies, and a big part of business for many more.

Just wanted to say...

khim — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 09:02:47 +0000

The most fascinating thing here is the easiness with which Oracle ascended to the top.

Just a week ago we had Microsoft as a "FOSS archenemy #1". The distant #2 Apple tried valiantly to win this title but was not vicious enough to even come close. And SCO was almost forgotten and it was not clear how long it'll be able to defend it's #3 position.

But Oracle was able to claim the top spot for itself in just one day with it's one-two combination of Android lawsuit and Solaris closure! Well done, Oracle, well done indeed. I always knew Oracle is vicious but to go from "maybe friend of FOSS" to "FOSS archenemy #1" in a day? They are good.

The sad thing is that Oracle is quite formidable archenemy: not only they are better organized then Microsoft (Microsoft was fearsome ten years ago, but today it's in disarray), but they literally own quite a few technologies important for today's FOSS ecosystem (lots of "normal user" can only use Linux because OpenOffice.org can read Microsoft formats, Berkeley DB is ubiquitous and so on) so they can not be just "cut off" from it! The fight will be long and bitter, I'm afraid...

Oh, and they managed to clear Google's name in one fell swap - but this obvious: it's just like SCO did seven years ago. Lots of people were wary of IBM back then - but since SCO put IBM in David's spot the "big bad IBM" suddenly was "defender of the Holy Grail" and was loved again. Google is "defender of the Holy Grail" today - and gets the same love.

The Holy Grail in question is not Linux, Dalvik or Android - these are important things but they are small potatoes in comparison to the Holy Grail of FOSS. The Holy Grail being: the ability to redo proprietary offerings. It's guarantee of eventual FOSS victory, but with this ability FOSS can hope to win the war against proprietary software. If masters of proprietary software can decide what can be reimplemented and what can not be ever rewritten - then all hope is lost. FOSS is defeated and we can only discuss terms of capitulation.

GNU started as Unix reimplementation and Linux was reimplementation of critical part of it. Dalvik is reimplementation of "Java Machine". Parallels are obvious: Oracle attack is not directed to "sometimes ally of FOSS". it's directed to the heart of FOSS (or may be it's Achilles heel?), to the one thing which must be protected no matter the cost. The one thing which may make the best buddy of FOSS it's sworn enemy in a day (and Oracle was not best buddy of FOSS at the best of times).

The Oracle declared war on FOSS. The only question: was it even aware they are declaring war on FOSS or were it's lawyers under illusion they are starting just another small shake-down operation? I doubt we'll ever know... but the closure of OpenSolaris hints that Oracle knew what they are doing: they decided they don't need the FOSS community anymore and can kick it to their liking.

The war is scary, especially the war with powerful enemy and former ally like Oracle, but FOSS community have no choice... gauntlet is thrown and even if Google capitulates (like TomTom capitulated before Microsoft) it'll probably not stop the war. Only Oracle can stop the war - and it's just not in Oracle's DNA...

btrfs is doomed

nim-nim — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 08:51:45 +0000

Oracle as a company does not care. Oracle has always consistently been about the money first. If Oracle ever makes mistakes is because they're too greedy, not because they paused to consider other motives.

However, I wonder if they took the precaution to firewall their Solaris and Linux teams. If they were to consolidate them in a single organisational unit, and put ex-SUN people at its head (because their new Solaris team is probably more numerous than the Linux one ever was), I can see relationships with Linux projects go south fast. SUN had a deeply-ingrained "UNIX is best", "we're open, but please sign here first, and we'll be back to you someday", and "everyone is equal, but we're more equal than others" attitude that completely soured their relations with other FLOSS actors.

Wel, you are right... kinda.

khim — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 07:06:53 +0000

This makes no sense. If i.e. MySQL is forked and multiple companies join in, this is absolutely no different than another non-Oracle related project.

If it's forked and multiple companies join in then yes, it may be safe over time (you first need big enough userbase and Oracle can kill such coalition before it's powerful enough to resist it). What does not make sense is to work on Oracle-owned technology without forking it.

This is what MariaDB does and this is why I'm not yet sure MariaDB is safe. Too few companies are involved is MariaDB - it still can be crushed easily.

The only worry here is patents, copyrights and who owns them does not matter at all, since distribution is already approved by the license.

Of course. This is what makes Oracle special. Years ago they were strongly against patents, yet today they are happy to use them to attack other companies directly. Similar to what Microsoft did. The remedy is the same: try to stay as far as possible from them. Just like with Microsoft is hard (they are big, own a lot of technologies which are a high demand today), but this is the only sensible approach.

Forks make sense - but only as last resort, when the technology is valuable enough to risk it. All things being equal it's usually better to join some existing camp. I'm now investigating Vala: it looks similar enough to Java/C# yet totally different since it does not use virtual machine. It does not include GC, but it does include refcounting - and practically speaking it's enough: if you have such a complex structures as to make refcounting unusable usually you have too complex structures to write correct programs with them. I'm not yet convinced it's the way to go, so I'm looking on Go too. We'll see what will replace Java in the future, but it's clear that Java is thing of the past...

They are killing Java

khim — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 06:37:03 +0000

Well, it looks like they really care about Java. But it's obvious that they are ready to kill it in exchange for something. What can they want which is big enough to kill Java? It's hard for me to even imagine...

Here is good article on subject.

btrfs is doomed

tseaver — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:49:21 +0000

> It's generally assumed that when your working under contract that the
> work you create is owned by the person your working for.

Not so, at least in the U.S: unless you are an employee whose employment
contract explicitly assigns such rights to your employer, or you are a
non-employee and your contract with your customer explicitly calls out the
work being delivered as falling under "work-for-hire" (or you explicitly
assign the copyrights as part of the contract), copyright adheres to the
creator.

> If you want it to be otherwise you'll have to take extra steps.

Exactly vice versa (under U.S. law).

IANALAIDPOOTV, of course.

Who's left?

jone — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 03:42:27 +0000

Looks like Mike Shapiro got a bit more power now that Fishworks hasn't panned out as well as they had hoped (everybody makes an appliance) .. and now Oracle after the trial year (to see where to make deep cuts) probably isn't getting enough revenue from [Open]Solaris to sustain its engineering effort is probably looking to turn more maintenance and licensing revenue - so the logical step is to batten down the hatches a bit and try to retain more of the talent from walking out the door by taking out some of the legs they can stand on while promising to hire more talent and attempt to bring in some young blood .. so gauging from a few of the hordes who've left:
- Bryan Cantrill
- Stephen Hahn
- Sunay Tripathi
- Bill Moore
- Garret D'Amore
(Looks like Adam and Brendan from team dTrace/Fishworks are still sticking it out with Mike) .. it sounds like they've got the option of either continuing to invest in Solaris, attempt a fork and potentially have their Licenses revoked and IP subsumed (not so nice looking at the CDDL from the other side), or dive into the linux kernel and attempt to start making things better there .. personally - i think it'd make sense to do the latter given the wide swath of things where there could really contribute now that they've taken off their jerseys and stepped into a larger co-contributing GPL biased world.

btrfs is doomed

drag — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 01:23:02 +0000

It's generally assumed that when your working under contract that the work you create is owned by the person your working for.

If you want it to be otherwise you'll have to take extra steps.

btrfs is doomed

drag — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:53:28 +0000

Whoever was put in charge of the division in charge of Solaris wants to make money from it. That's his/her's job and they probably take it seriously.

But that's not the same as Oracle caring about Linux vs Solaris and having a pony in the race.

If they do care about A vs B then they are stupid. Linux is more popular then Solaris: it's used by more customers, supported by more vendors, better hardware support, better application support, etc etc. In about every category it's a much more competitive OS then Solaris is.

Oracle has to make Linux better at running their databases and they have to make it better at running Java. That is what helps them competitively in the long run. Anything beyond making Linux run their applications faster and more reliably... I don't think they care. (example: Android or KDE)

It's just self-interest.

I expect you'll find that the 'Solaris 11' being 1337 is more window dressing then anything else in order to keep their existing customers happy. They are not going to be able to manage making the difference between Solaris 10 and Solaris 11 bigger then the difference between Solaris 9 and Solaris 10 when the men/women largely responsible for the improvements in 10 are now gone...

Not Oracle-started! Oracle-owned!

Los__D — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:09:29 +0000

This makes no sense. If i.e. MySQL is forked and multiple companies join in, this is absolutely no different than another non-Oracle related project.

The only worry here is patents, copyrights and who owns them does not matter at all, since distribution is already approved by the license.

btrfs is doomed

clump — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:28:20 +0000

Much depends on whether/what Mason signed while working for Oracle. Many American technology employers claim sole ownership of anything developed inside their walls. It behoves the employee to make sure he or she isn't giving away rights.

Not Oracle-started! Oracle-owned!

khim — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 21:02:01 +0000

In that case, does it really matter if it was a Oracle project or not?

Yes, it does. Big time.

How does this make Oracle-started projects a bigger target for attack?

They are not Oracle-started. They are Oracle-owned! Remember? All the copyrights were assigned to Sun so Oracle owns everything.

If Oracle has patents on all interesting DB features, and are ready to use them, it does not matter if it is a new MySQL feature or a new PostgreSQL feature that ticks them off.

Recall the famous line: "This suit is specifically about Google and that's it." Oracle can say so because it's sole owner of copyrights and patents. It can decide what and when to do with any potential contributor/infringer. And this will be true for anyone who'll be foolish enough to participate in non-Oracle-blessed development of said projects - it can be kicked out anytime and noone will be able to do anything. But it's hard for Oracle to single-out one particular contributor to PostgreSQL. They can do this right after patch is accepted but at this stage it's trivial to just remove it and send Oracle away - but later, when feature is adopted and widely used and intermixed with other features... in essence any attack on one PostgreSQL developer is equal to attack on all PostgreSQL developers and users. This means it's not "Oracle vs someone else", but "Oracle vs everyone else" now. Big difference.

Now, I'm not saying it's 100% safe to switch from MySQL to PostgreSQL or MariaDB (in fact I think MariaDB is not safe at all as it stands right now), but to "continue with Oracle platform and hope for the best" is stupidity itself.

Of course there are always possibility "to play it safe": to work with Oracle and develop official version by fully accepting Oracle directions and removing everything Oracle does not like. But this will mean you are now unpaid employee of Oracle... why will anyone want this?