Everyone has been that demon at one point or other (even Apple -- the "look and feel" lawsuits that are a bit before your time). I was thinking the other day a

Everyone has been that demon at one point or other (even Apple -- the "look and feel" lawsuits that are a bit before your time). I was thinking the other day about how sure I was that MySQL was toast as soon as Oracle acquired Berkeley DB and InnoDB, and then how sure I was it would be hobbled when they acquired Sun and got the whole shebang. What happened, actually, is that MySQL got better and better, with only a few annoying Oracley missteps along the way (permissions structure changes in a minor release for example). But what matters in that story is that Oracle vs (big bad) Google was substantially decided for Google, despite what Oracle (and Microsoft) wanted. Because it limits Oracle's power to use the MySQL APIs against competitors in the same way as it limits their ability to use them against Java competitors. This is what I mean: these are big competing interests. We are small interchangeable customers and consumers. It's worth avoiding investing belief in any of them.