A year ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek blog entry about the MySQL “soap opera”. I never anticipated the soap opera would take on the international importance it has today, with the European Union (EU) questioning the purchase of Sun Microsystems by Oracle.

There have already been two excellent Postgres blog posts about this issue (1. 2), so I just want to make three observations:

• I never thought Oracle cared enough about MySQL to delay the merger, e.g. MySQL was not mentioned in the merger announcement, and MySQL makes up a small portion of Sun’s revenue. I am guessing either MySQL is more important than Oracle revealed, or Oracle is resisting the EU objections out of principle or stubbornness. (Perhaps there is some advantage to Oracle in delaying the merger.)
• Oracle users rarely migrate to MySQL, so I don’t understand the anti-competitive objection to the merger. Even then-CEO Marten Mickos said in 2003 that MySQL complements and does not compete against Oracle, so it is hard to understand why the EU is objecting to the purchase on monopolistic grounds. As much as MySQL tried to position itself by adding enterprise features, the effort was incomplete, and based on the limited number of people who port applications from Oracle to MySQL, probably not very successful.Of course, Postgres works well for both MySQL and Oracle workloads based on the number of people who port applications every day, and Postgres will remain a viable open source database alternative no matter what happens to MySQL.
• There is an argument that dual-licensing is required to create successful open source software companies. Of course Red Hat, other GPL-only software companies, and Postgres companies are doing just fine, so it is hard to see how this argument makes sense. It might be a requirement if you expect to pay all the MySQL developers, which is the way MySQL has always operated in the past. Postgres and most open source projects rely much more on volunteers and on multiple companies supporting developers who work in a cooperative fashion; MySQL was an aberration in this area.Interestingly, some MySQL users are suggesting a compromise of changing MySQL to use the Apache/BSD license, like Postgres’s, which certainly is easier for companies, but not a requirement. There is a few thoughtful articles (1, 2, 3) about the licensing issue.

I think the big concern Postgres people have is that many of the things being said about this merger are either wrong or MySQL-specific and portray open source, and open source databases specifically, in an inaccurate way.