MySQL AB is going 'toes up'? Or was that a 'what if'?
Josh Berkus wrote:
> Jean-Michel,
>
> Please cc: this to the original poster:
>
>
>>>PostgreSQL. Today, it's clearly the superior product. It will be
>
>
> It is really? According to which criteria? Clearly more popular, certainly.
> However, I may point out that MS Access still has more installations than
> MySQL ...and nobody is calling MS Access a "superior database product".
>
>
>>>tomorrow too. But Betamax was pretty neat too.
>>>PostgreSQL needs more corporate support. Case studies are great, but
>>>someone needs to step into the void that Great Bridge created.
>
>
> To be completely blunt: MySQL the database will not easily survive the demise
> of MySQL AB. Their development is still centrally and very corporately
> controlled; they are more a commercial company using the GPL as a
> distribution mechanism than a real Open Source project. And while Open
> Source is hard to beat in the marketplace, MySQL AB is easily beaten or
> consumed by larger, fiercer commercial competitors. Particularly since the
> company has shown anything but astuteness in their commercial relationships.
>
> Think about this: What would happen if Microsoft or Oracle purchased MySQL AB
> in order to shut it down? What would happen to the MySQL Project? The same
> thing that's happening to the SAP-DB project?
>
> PostgreSQL has survived the deaths and/or acquisition of several companies,
> most notably Great Bridge. In this way, PostgreSQL is just like Linux ...
> many people commercialize it but nobody owns it.
>
>From my perspective, Great Bridge was, in fact, a problem for us because our
> project became associated with GB in the public mind ... meaning that when GB
> shut down due to a bad business model, a lot of people got the impression
> that PostgreSQL was shutting down too. We've been quite a while recovering
> from that, and MySQL's public profile has surged ahead in the meantime.
>
> I would ... or perhaps will ... be nice to get some corporate money again for
> useful things like trade show booths. But we want to avoid the impression
> ever again that PostgreSQL is owned by any one company. (Thankfully,
> PostgreSQL Inc. has been very careful in this regard)
>