What Will MySQL do if it is abandoned by Oracle?

[51CTO quickly translated from toutiao.com in September 22] If you want to give you a minute to become the president of Oracle, you are not required to wear LarryEllison's expensive suit on his yacht, but let you decide the fate of MySQL. What do you do? Just spent 7.4 billion to acquire SunMicrosystems, and the EU anti-monopoly investigation committee suddenly moved out of this person

51CTO is translated from toutiao.com in September 22. If you have a minute to become the president of Oracle, you are not required to wear Larry Ellison's expensive suit on his yacht, but let you decide the fate of MySQL. What do you do? Just spent 7.4 billion to acquire Sun Microsystems, and the European Commission for anti-monopoly investigations suddenly moved out of this person

51CTO is translated from toutiao.com in September 22. If you have a minute to become the president of Oracle, you are not required to wear Larry Ellison's expensive suit on his yacht, but let you decide the fate of MySQL. What do you do? I just spent 7.4 billion yuan to acquire Sun Microsystems, and the European Commission for anti-monopoly investigations suddenly moved out of this everyone's favorite open-source database to find you. How do you choose? Is it a product that doesn't make any money for good reputation, or is it thrown into the sea?

If you are an investment analyst at Wall Street, the answer is clear: throw into the sea.

"MySQL is a burden, not an asset," said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at financial Research firm Global Equities Research. He believes that considering the EU survey and the negligible growth in MySQL revenue over the past two years, Oracle's only wise choice is to strip it out. However, where should we go?

However, there are other ideas, such as Matthew Aslett, an open-source analyst at analytics 451 Group, which has been advocating: "Oracle knows that killing MySQL does not bring anything to itself. We expect MySQL to continue to grow as a network application database and compete with SQL Server, "he wrote last week.

Maybe he is right. However, it is unclear whether Oracle will take MySQL users to their expensive commercial products step by step.

Throwing MySQL to the wheel?

Oracle has hardly said anything about the fate of MySQL. Aside from the website, "MySQL will become an additional solution for Oracle's existing database suite products ." Frankly speaking, given the huge amount of Sun's purchase and the possible negative vote from the European Commission, it is wise for Oracle to keep shut up now.

Even so, there is a message that Oracle may not do its best to keep MySQL.

"MySQL is almost impossible to convert into actual revenue. More than 98% of its customers are DIY, and they do not think they should spend money to buy any support. Our contacts at Sun told us that MySQL has been solving the income problem, and the revenue in the past three years may not actually exceed $50 million, and we cannot see any growth in revenue, "Chowdhry said in his report to the customer.

While users are worried about the future of MySQL under Oracle, it is interesting that, aside from making profits or not, MySQL was indeed popular during Sun's management. According to Chowdhry, the average download times of MySQL increased from 20 thousand to 60 thousand after Sun was acquired, but recently dropped to 20 thousand to 20 thousand, this is probably because of Oracle's acquisition.

If the Chowdhry message source is correct, MySQL's revenue has not progressed over the past few years, which is not a good sign for Oracle, even if the price is cheaper, it is not a good idea to take over a company with income problems in a bad economy.

The multi-vendor foundation may be the final destination of MySQL?

"My intuition is that the European Commission will not require Oracle to strip MySQL because of its low market share and there is no reason to do so," Aslett told me, "However, I think the European Commission clearly understands that MySQL has a much greater influence than its market share, this is why it has always asked Oracle for more details about the MySQL development plan and whether it will maintain Open Source Licenses and business relationships."

Although Aslett believes that Oracle will eventually discover the value of MySQL and keep it, it also makes assumptions for the split, "The potential acquirer list will include Red Hat (the database is the heavy product in its portfolio) and Monty Program (if it has enough funds ). In addition, some private equity companies are also interested. They will continue to operate MySQL as an independent enterprise, "he said.

Another possibility is to hand MySQL to a multi-vendor Foundation, which can re-authorize code under a more tolerant licensing system and promise not to conflict with non-GPL software copyright.

I like this idea. MySQL has won a piece of sky in the software field, which is none of Oracle's business. An independent MySQL run by a neutral foundation may be its biggest long-term hope.
Finally, I will reveal that I actually have a small amount of Oracle shares, hoping this will not affect my writing.

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Original article: wocould MySQL keep ve without Oracle?

Author: Bill Snyder