Re: [GENERAL] Oracle buys Innobase - Mailing list pgsql-advocacy

I agree with Jan.

I think a good part of this whole situation has more to do with MySQL
having a core part of its product be dependent on an external entity.
Be they open source or not. I would think they have thought about
this possibility at various points in the past.

 From where I sit, I dont see PostgreSQL having the same situation,
but perhaps there's some other ridiculously popular extension to pg
which I dont know about. I'd vote for just continuing to make a
better product, compete aggressively on the pr front (where pg still
has some way to go), and let the best player win.
___________________________________
Javier Soltero
Hyperic                  |  www.hyperic.net
o- 415 738 2566  |  c- 415 305 8733
javier.soltero@hyperic.net
___________________________________

On Oct 11, 2005, at 5:02 PM, Jan Wieck wrote:

> On 10/11/2005 6:31 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
>
>> Jim C. Nasby wrote:
>>
>>> Of course one flip-side to all this is that if Oracle does attack
>>> us it
>>> actually lends credibility; it means they see PostgreSQL as a
>>> threat. At
>>> this point that could do more good for us than harm, depending on
>>> how
>>> exactly the attacked.
>>>
>> Well, that was MySQL's reaction to it, but I think the harm far
>> outweighs the good for them.  Its more like, "Oracle finds MySQL a
>> threat, what is MySQL going to do now!"  We don't want that kind of
>> outcome.  Also, there are ways of attacking that do not show
>> Oracle as
>> an agreesor, like hiring PostgreSQL developers.
>>
>
> From the fact that there was first an Oracle announcement and then
> some "calming words" from MySQL we can tell that this wasn't
> friendly. If it would have been, they would have had a joint press
> release instead of this big grin from Oracle and that clenched
> teeth smile from MySQL in return. So I agree, they are in deep
> trouble.
>
> Now the much I agree that we should be carefull and watch out, I
> don't think we should be jumping to conclusions either. Nobody
> outside Oracle knows right now what their real plan and their real
> target with that acquisition is.
>
> Don't forget that only a part, although a substantial part, of
> Oracles revenue comes out of the database business. One possibility
> is that they try to do birth control against a low-cost R/3
> backend, which undoubtedly would be very bad for their CRM and ERP
> business in several ways. After failing to build any open source
> community, SAP had found MySQL, who was willing to maintain the SAP-
> DB sourcecode for them. If Oracle squishes MySQL now, SAP is back
> to square one on that project. There are many R/3 installations out
> there that go well beyond 1/4 million dollars per year in DB
> license fees alone. So even if they can only delay this development
> by two to three years, it might pay off quite well.
>
> And look at it, all Oracle would have to do is to be so open source
> friendly that they make InnoDB GPL only. Can you imagine the
> confusion in the MySQL fan club if Oracle releases the next GPL
> version of InnoDB and MySQL AB announces that they ripped out
> InnoDB support and favor something with half the feature set instead?
>
>
> Jan
>
>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ------
>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:04:40PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> > We have entered a new phase in the possible attacks on PostgreSQL.
>>> > > The purchase of InnoDB clearly shows Oracle is ready to
>>> expend money to
>>> > slow down competitive database technology.  Now that MySQL has
>>> been
>>> > attacked, we should expect to be the next target.
>>> > > Let's assume Oracle is willing to spend 1% of their revenue
>>> or net
>>> > income on attacking PostgreSQL.  Given this financial statement:
>>> > >     http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=ORCL&annual
>>> > > that would be USD $20-100 million.  (The Oracle financial
>>> statement will
>>> > eventually disclose the purchase price of InnoDB, and we can
>>> use that as
>>> > a minimum amount they would be willing to spend.)
>>> > > Now, I think Oracle realizes that the database will
>>> eventually become a
>>> > commodity based on their purchase of Peoplesoft and other
>>> application
>>> > technology.  However, every financial period they delay that
>>> time is
>>> > more profit for them, so it is a cost/benefit of how much it is
>>> worth to
>>> > slow down PostgreSQL.  Obviously they thought the InnoDB
>>> purchase was
>>> > worth it to slow down or control MySQL.  Our goal should be to
>>> make the
>>> > cost of attacks higher than the benefit.
>>> > > Here are the three most likely attacks on our project:
>>> > > o  Hiring > > Oracle could hire a large portion of our paid
>>> or volunteer developers,
>>> > thereby slowing down the project.  Individuals would probably be
>>> > approach as "We like your work on PostgreSQL and would like your
>>> > expertise in improving Oracle", but of course once hired what
>>> they did
>>> > for Oracle would be unimportant.  What would be important is
>>> what they
>>> > _don't_ do for PostgreSQL.
>>> > > o  Trademark
>>> > > Marc Fournier owns the PostgreSQL trademark and domain
>>> names.  He could
>>> > be attacked, perhaps by hiring him to do a job, causing it to
>>> fail, then
>>> > suing him to obtain the trademark, and therefore the right to
>>> own the
>>> > domain names.  The trademark has not been enforced, and it
>>> would be hard
>>> > to enforce at this stage, but I think it would be effective in
>>> gaining
>>> > control of the domain names.
>>> > > o  Patents
>>> > > Most technology people agree the software patent system is
>>> broken, but
>>> > it could be a potent weapon against us, though we have shown we
>>> can
>>> > efficiently remove patent issue from our code.
>>> > > > There is probably nothing Oracle can do to permanently harm
>>> us, but
>>> > there are a variety of things they can do to temporarily slow
>>> us down,
>>> > and it is likely a attempt will be made in the future.  There
>>> are also
>>> > possible threats to PostgreSQL support companies, though they are
>>> > somewhat independent of the project.
>>> > > -- >   Bruce Momjian                        |  http://
>>> candle.pha.pa.us
>>> >   pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 359-1001
>>> >   +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
>>> >   +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square,
>>> Pennsylvania 19073
>>> > > ---------------------------(end of
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>>> > --
>>> Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
>>> Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
>>> vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461
>>>
>
>
> --
> #=====================================================================
> =#
> # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being
> right. #
> # Let's break this rule - forgive
> me.                                  #
> #==================================================
> JanWieck@Yahoo.com #
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