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Not sure how the original developers can create a fork of a product they sold for 1 billion? Product was GPL licensed. For many years before Oracle bought it.

by glurgh 13y ago

pestaa 13y ago
So they kept the money and the legacy of the product. Surely Oracle considered this option? Could have they done anything to prevent such forks?
- fooey 13y ago
  he had to stay on at oracle for a year
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    "He" who? Monty was already gone when Oracle bought Sun.
    - fooey 13y ago
      yeah, I meant Sun same thing ;p
- DoubleMalt 13y ago
  Putting real effort into developing an awesome product. Then nobody would have seen the need for a fork. Of course they are afraid of cannibalizing their other overpriced stuff. So they wanted to let it die a slow and painful death. In he grand scheme of things getting rid of the pesky competitor MySQL was only an afterthought in the decision to buy Sun, that was probably driven by the legal department. Also Oracle is pretty strong in the corporate Java space and has some great products there. So MySQL did never get the attention it deserved and needed to thrive.
  - gboudrias 13y ago
    > Also Oracle is pretty strong in the corporate Java space and has some great products there. And by great do you mean "fucking awful albeit reliable"? That's always how I saw Oracle products. A pain at every turn, but it works. Last I heard, that's why Oracle developers earn more than most: No one wants to do it.
- glurgh 13y ago
  The original purchaser was Sun and they presumably bought it, in part, to compete with Oracle in the lower-end market, to ensure MySQL runs well on Sun hardware (which, in turn, sells more hardware), to sell MySQL related support and professional services and so on. Not long after this, Oracle acquired Sun and along with it, MySQL. One of the MySQL founders didn't like this and started a fork of MySQL, based on the GPL'ed source. There's not a great deal Oracle could have done about this. But they weren't just buying MySQL, they were buying all of Sun. Additionally, the fork wasn't exactly a commercial threat for years - it's only now that we're starting to see movement towards adoption of MariaDB by high-profile, large users.
  - justin66 13y ago
    > Not long after this, Oracle acquired Sun and along with it, MySQL. One of the MySQL founders didn't like this and started a fork of MySQL, based on the GPL'ed source. Based on his constant whining BEFORE the Oracle purchase, that guy would have ended up starting a fork anyhow.
- mdmarra 13y ago
  Oracle didn't buy Sun for a database engine, they bought them for Java and Solaris.
- gaius 13y ago
  Business decisions like that are why Sun went bankrupt. For their $1bn they bought only the domain name mysql.com, and Monty was all over the Intermet slagging them off too. FWIW the only way MySQL was usable for real work was InnoDB, which was an Oracle product too.
- noelherrick 13y ago
  Oracle also has a commercial license for MySQL, which customers can buy to enable them to embed MySQL into their closed-source product. The Monty Program cannot license MariaDB as anything other than the GPL.

Not sure how the original developers can create a fork of a product they sold for 1 billion? Product was GPL licensed. For many years before Oracle bought it.

by glurgh 13y ago

Not sure how the original developers can create a fork of a product they sold for 1 billion? Product was GPL licensed. For many years before Oracle bought it.

pestaa 13y ago

So they kept the money and the legacy of the product. Surely Oracle considered this option? Could have they done anything to prevent such forks?

fooey 13y ago
he had to stay on at oracle for a year
- nknighthb 13y ago
  "He" who? Monty was already gone when Oracle bought Sun.
  - fooey 13y ago
    yeah, I meant Sun same thing ;p
DoubleMalt 13y ago
Putting real effort into developing an awesome product. Then nobody would have seen the need for a fork. Of course they are afraid of cannibalizing their other overpriced stuff. So they wanted to let it die a slow and painful death. In he grand scheme of things getting rid of the pesky competitor MySQL was only an afterthought in the decision to buy Sun, that was probably driven by the legal department. Also Oracle is pretty strong in the corporate Java space and has some great products there. So MySQL did never get the attention it deserved and needed to thrive.
- gboudrias 13y ago
  > Also Oracle is pretty strong in the corporate Java space and has some great products there. And by great do you mean "fucking awful albeit reliable"? That's always how I saw Oracle products. A pain at every turn, but it works. Last I heard, that's why Oracle developers earn more than most: No one wants to do it.
glurgh 13y ago
The original purchaser was Sun and they presumably bought it, in part, to compete with Oracle in the lower-end market, to ensure MySQL runs well on Sun hardware (which, in turn, sells more hardware), to sell MySQL related support and professional services and so on. Not long after this, Oracle acquired Sun and along with it, MySQL. One of the MySQL founders didn't like this and started a fork of MySQL, based on the GPL'ed source. There's not a great deal Oracle could have done about this. But they weren't just buying MySQL, they were buying all of Sun. Additionally, the fork wasn't exactly a commercial threat for years - it's only now that we're starting to see movement towards adoption of MariaDB by high-profile, large users.
- justin66 13y ago
  > Not long after this, Oracle acquired Sun and along with it, MySQL. One of the MySQL founders didn't like this and started a fork of MySQL, based on the GPL'ed source. Based on his constant whining BEFORE the Oracle purchase, that guy would have ended up starting a fork anyhow.
mdmarra 13y ago
Oracle didn't buy Sun for a database engine, they bought them for Java and Solaris.
gaius 13y ago
Business decisions like that are why Sun went bankrupt. For their $1bn they bought only the domain name mysql.com, and Monty was all over the Intermet slagging them off too. FWIW the only way MySQL was usable for real work was InnoDB, which was an Oracle product too.
noelherrick 13y ago
Oracle also has a commercial license for MySQL, which customers can buy to enable them to embed MySQL into their closed-source product. The Monty Program cannot license MariaDB as anything other than the GPL.