Re: Off Topic: open source databases

From: joel garry <joel-garry_at_home.com>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2010 11:30:19 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <bdd31903-c041-466e-b1fa-3f815a2107a0_at_11g2000prw.googlegroups.com>

On May 27, 4:52 am, Steve Howard <stevedhow..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On May 26, 9:34 pm, Mladen Gogala <gogala.mla..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 26 May 2010 10:14:40 -0700, Steve Howard wrote:
> > > It's replacement in the world?  I would guess MySQL, based on Oracle
> > > Corp.'s ownership if nothing else.
>
> > Hmmm, that doesn't compute, from my point of view. That is precisely why
> > I opened this topic. Why would a huge corporation suddenly abandon its
> > main cash cow in favor of a freebie? Slowly killing the freebie seems
> > more likely to me, now that Oracle Corp. owns it. I am not sure as to why
> > people are not trying to run away from MySQL, but they obviously are not.
>
> > --http://mgogala.byethost5.com
>
> I honestly think that over the longer run, Oracle is trying to figure
> out how to make money from software as a service, rather than charging
> for it as a product.
>
> So yes, they don't *own* it from a practical standpoint, as Galen
> noted.  However, they will support it and back it with whatever it
> needs (including the read consistent model they provided it via InnoDB
> a few years ago).  In the process, they may discover how to make money
> from it without charging for the software, which I *hope* makes it
> over the to the flagship RDBMS.
>
> As Monty Widenius has already kind of done, someone will just fork the
> code if they try to kill it, as it is already in the wild.

Yes, the long run is what Mladen missed in the "main cash cow" assertion. In a nutshell, a product (or service) has hit the peak of its life cycle, not much more development costs need to be sunk, so it can be profitable for a while with little development. For someone with a strategic planning view (like Larry), it's not so much killing a cow as milking it while paying a lot more attention to growing new cows. In the past there have been a number of little cows, Oracle apps and various aquisitions that weren't turned to veal. MySQL could be a calf that will be fattened as databases become ever more commoditized. Tactically, pricing and development for all the db products can adapt to the where's-the-beef futures market as opportunities come and go. Go ahead and make the obvious jokes about what this scenario is full of, at least I didn't respond to the OP comparing the Earth to redo logs :-) Databases haven't been the center of Larry's universe for a long time. Heck, even the Catholic Church's
http://religion.gaeatimes.com/2010/05/22/polish-priests-to-rebury-copernicus-as-hero-after-astronomers-remains-found-in-unmarked-grave-3016/

jg

--
_at_home.com is bogus.
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Received on Thu May 27 2010 - 13:30:19 CDT