Hey look! I've got an opinion on MySQL too!
As far as I can tell, this doesn't change anything except that Sun will begin to collect the support contract revenue.
I suspect that even if Sun did absolutely nothing to the code, this purchase would pay for itself eventually, but I'm confident that Sun/MySQL will not sit on their hands. Which makes me think there's a lot more coming back from this.
So as MySQL gets better, more support contracts, more money. I simply cannot see this as a bad thing.
Dropping a $billion might be a bit shocking, but it smacks of fantastic financial health to me. They either have it in cash, or they have a plan good enough to convince a lender that it was a great idea. Either way, it still means Sun has the means to spend the money to make money.
I was trying to post this in response to Ben Rockwood but all I got was "Spam is not appreciated" so I must have done something wrong at some point.
So there it is. My opinion. It's not deep, or well-reasoned. But it's mine.
Well, I am not surprised by the whole MySQL acquisition. Sun regularly flops on their decisions. Remember the whole "we support Linux" initiative?
First, they had Java Desktop System, Sun's version of Linux (yeah, I know it was really SuSe). At version 3, it became Solaris. WTF? There were several companies building apps of JDS and now had to be ported over to Solaris.
Lets not forget how many times Sun flip-flopped on supporting Intel hardware.
Changing support for databases should be no different. Sun had previously adopted PostgreSQL, but I never really saw anything from this. I still happily loaded MySQL from BlastWave on all my Solaris systems mainly because just about every app I had that required a database would support MySQL and I didn't feel like asking the DBAFH for room on the corporate Oracle server.
I think that since McNeely has stepped down, decisions have be thought out better. I can see some good coming out of the whole MySQL thing. Imagine if it was packaged and supported to run in environments like Sun Cluster and ZFS . . . might actually start giving Oracle a run for their money. Not to mention some nice Java IDEs for MySQL as well.
Posted by Craig Betts on January 22, 2008 at 07:19 AM PST #
Google told me that MySQL is supported on Sun Cluster:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/817-4574/6mk3dq5sg?a=view
ZFS is supported in Sun Cluster 3.2:
http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-6611/gdamd?a=view
And I read this the other night regarding MySQL + ZFS == Fast Backups
http://blogs.digitar.com/jjww/?itemid=56
Here's the SnapBack download:
http://blogs.digitar.com/media/2/mysql_snapback_r1524.tar.bz2
Posted by blah on January 22, 2008 at 08:25 AM PST #
See? Now all that is needed is a single maintenance contract to cover the whole kit-n-kiboodle!
. . . and people wonder why I like Solaris so much . . .
:-D
Posted by Craig Betts on January 22, 2008 at 08:32 AM PST #