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Can you explain your comment about "mass defection away from MySQL"? Do you think that's something that's about to practically happen? Thanks.

tentonova2 17y ago
We started making plans to migrate away to PostgreSQL when Oracle embarked on a clear strategy to buy/control MySQL by purchasing InnoDB, and then Sleepycat. There were already plenty of technical justifications to abandon MySQL, but the potential of dealing with Oracle sealed the business case. From past experience, Oracle was not a company whose licensing, development, or business strategy we wanted to be beholden to. With Oracle now (nearly) owning MySQL proper, the move seems correct. There's the potential that they'll improve on MySQL, but any significant improvements will eat at Oracle sales unless they're also countered with licensing changes or other revenue-boosting strategies -- such as splitting into enterprise/open source open/closed versions. Better to use PostgreSQL where we don't need to pay client library licensing fees, and aren't locked to a vendor.
- spudlyo 17y ago
  You don't need to license the client library anymore now that the BSD licensed libdrizzle exists. It's a clean room implementation of the client library written by Eric Day at Sun and is compatible with MySQL server versions >= 4.1. You also had the option of using the very old public domain licensed version of the client library, provided you could find it. I believe that RedHat shipped it at one point.
  - rbanffy 17y ago
    BTW, Drizzle appears to be a very good database server. I am currently evaluating it under various workloads and it seems happy. It hasn't shown any advantage over MySQL in the tests done so far beyond not belonging to Oracle. And for new projects, I do prefer PostgreSQL.
forkandwait 17y ago
I meant the comment mostly to be funny, but "much truth is said in jest". Yes, I think it will happen -- especially if a few of the important devs in the MySQL world get frustrated with the whole Cluster F---, make a change, and start to write about it. Quality wins, but only in the long run; it took forever for C to become the standard it rightly is, but it happened. The entire universe is finally waking up to what crap Java is, why not finally realize that MySQL has fewer features, less reliability, AND is more constrained Postgres? ... ducks head

tentonova2 17y ago

We started making plans to migrate away to PostgreSQL when Oracle embarked on a clear strategy to buy/control MySQL by purchasing InnoDB, and then Sleepycat. There were already plenty of technical justifications to abandon MySQL, but the potential of dealing with Oracle sealed the business case. From past experience, Oracle was not a company whose licensing, development, or business strategy we wanted to be beholden to. With Oracle now (nearly) owning MySQL proper, the move seems correct. There's the potential that they'll improve on MySQL, but any significant improvements will eat at Oracle sales unless they're also countered with licensing changes or other revenue-boosting strategies -- such as splitting into enterprise/open source open/closed versions. Better to use PostgreSQL where we don't need to pay client library licensing fees, and aren't locked to a vendor.

spudlyo 17y ago
You don't need to license the client library anymore now that the BSD licensed libdrizzle exists. It's a clean room implementation of the client library written by Eric Day at Sun and is compatible with MySQL server versions >= 4.1. You also had the option of using the very old public domain licensed version of the client library, provided you could find it. I believe that RedHat shipped it at one point.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  BTW, Drizzle appears to be a very good database server. I am currently evaluating it under various workloads and it seems happy. It hasn't shown any advantage over MySQL in the tests done so far beyond not belonging to Oracle. And for new projects, I do prefer PostgreSQL.

forkandwait 17y ago

I meant the comment mostly to be funny, but "much truth is said in jest". Yes, I think it will happen -- especially if a few of the important devs in the MySQL world get frustrated with the whole Cluster F---, make a change, and start to write about it. Quality wins, but only in the long run; it took forever for C to become the standard it rightly is, but it happened. The entire universe is finally waking up to what crap Java is, why not finally realize that MySQL has fewer features, less reliability, AND is more constrained Postgres? ... ducks head