Thread: Sun buys MySQL
Just in case you were living under a rock and hadn't heard :) -- Jonah H. Harris, Sr. Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324 EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301 499 Thornall Street, 2nd Floor | jonah.harris@enterprisedb.com Edison, NJ 08837 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/
I appreciate the laissez-faire way PostgreSQL development works, but I've always wondered if the project wouldn't benefit from incorporating somehow. I believe a corporate charter can say pretty much anything you want it to, including 'we are a a bunch of anarchists and intend to stay that way'; but were there such an entity, it would increase the possibilities of similar good fortune befalling the PostgreSQL project. Core only. No deals with devils. -Ron-
Ron, > No deals with devils. But wouldn't that disqualify being bought out? -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
On Jan 16, 2008 6:23 PM, Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote: > > No deals with devils. > > But wouldn't that disqualify being bought out? :) -- Jonah H. Harris, Sr. Software Architect | phone: 732.331.1324 EnterpriseDB Corporation | fax: 732.331.1301 499 Thornall Street, 2nd Floor | jonah.harris@enterprisedb.com Edison, NJ 08837 | http://www.enterprisedb.com/
2008-01-16_18:23:31-0500 Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>: > Ron, > > > No deals with devils. > > But wouldn't that disqualify being bought out? Not necessarily. Corporations and free software aren't necessarily incompatible. What's wrong with a company giving you a bunch of money to do what you were already doing anyway? Why would they do that? Because they are afraid you might could be purchased by some one else with other intentions. For marketing reasons. Because they believe in what you are doing. I was talking to some of the Berkeley DBXML guys at OracleOpenworld in SF recently. They seem very happy. I asked them if they had felt pressured to change their development methodologies, their vision, their license. No to all of that - which to me was a real surprise. That's not the kind of world I inhabit, so I'm certainly no expert on these matters, but it's certainly something to chew on. "PostgreSQL Developers Make Good" is a headline I wouldn't mind seeing someday. -Ron-
Ron Peterson wrote: > 2008-01-16_18:23:31-0500 Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>: >> Ron, > That's not the kind of world I inhabit, so I'm certainly no expert on > these matters, but it's certainly something to chew on. "PostgreSQL > Developers Make Good" is a headline I wouldn't mind seeing someday. You realize that a corporation is able to donate money any time they want? Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake
2008-01-16_22:03:11-0500 "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>: > Ron Peterson wrote: > >2008-01-16_18:23:31-0500 Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>: > >>Ron, > > >That's not the kind of world I inhabit, so I'm certainly no expert on > >these matters, but it's certainly something to chew on. "PostgreSQL > >Developers Make Good" is a headline I wouldn't mind seeing someday. > > You realize that a corporation is able to donate money any time they want? Really? I didn't know that. :) My suspicion is that most corporations don't believe such donations would have the same benefit to the corporation as an outright purchase. Sun, for example, can now claim to be _the_ definitive provider of MySQL support services, rather than merely being one of many sponsors. That is the return on their investment. There are plenty of PHB's who want so-called "enterprise" support, and who will pay good money for it. Where should they buy that support for MySQL? Sun, of course. A purchase gives Sun a certain exclusivity that they could never buy with a mere donation. -- Ron Peterson https://www.yellowbank.com/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:04:41 -0500 Ron Peterson <ron.peterson@yellowbank.com> wrote: > > You realize that a corporation is able to donate money any time > > they want? > > Really? I didn't know that. :) http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate It is 501c3 and everything. > > My suspicion is that most corporations don't believe such donations > would have the same benefit to the corporation as an outright > purchase. Same benefit? No. Still a benefit? yes. > > Sun, for example, can now claim to be _the_ definitive provider of > MySQL support services, rather than merely being one of many > sponsors. That is the return on their investment. There are plenty > of PHB's who want so-called "enterprise" support, and who will pay > good money for it. Where should they buy that support for MySQL? > Sun, of course. Well sure, and all those PHBs can also buy "enterprise" support from Command Prompt (and several new ones do every month). Heck they can even buy from EnterpriseDB. Enterprise is in the name for goodness sake ;) > > A purchase gives Sun a certain exclusivity that they could never buy > with a mere donation. > I don't argue that it is an interesting strategic move for Sun. They paid entirely too much but that isn't really relevant for us. What is important as that all this is going to do is invigorate our community further. I guarantee you we will start to see even more influx of new community members with this purchase. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake - -- The PostgreSQL Company: Since 1997, http://www.commandprompt.com/ Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate SELECT 'Training', 'Consulting' FROM vendor WHERE name = 'CMD' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHjtbiATb/zqfZUUQRAuqlAJ9ZXZ0wASoD7X8shKJhVzkV8XqJ/wCgiEZd VPn2DbRAfTdzPcIbL+SzHP8= =EgW+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
2008-01-16_23:17:33-0500 "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>: > > Sun, for example, can now claim to be _the_ definitive provider of > > MySQL support services, rather than merely being one of many > > sponsors. That is the return on their investment. There are plenty > > of PHB's who want so-called "enterprise" support, and who will pay > > good money for it. Where should they buy that support for MySQL? > > Sun, of course. > > Well sure, and all those PHBs can also buy "enterprise" support from > Command Prompt (and several new ones do every month). Heck they can > even buy from EnterpriseDB. Enterprise is in the name for goodness > sake ;) Of course - and they would be in great hands if they did so. > > A purchase gives Sun a certain exclusivity that they could never buy > > with a mere donation. > > I don't argue that it is an interesting strategic move for Sun. They > paid entirely too much but that isn't really relevant for us. > > What is important as that all this is going to do is invigorate our > community further. I guarantee you we will start to see even more > influx of new community members with this purchase. Of course I'm still a PostgreSQL bigot myself, but I think this move does more to invigorate MySQL than PostgreSQL. But that was not really my point. My point was that MySQL could be an acquisition target because they have a clearly defined organizational structure; and that they are much more valuable to Sun as an acquisition than as a charity case. Lacking any formal structure, it's difficult to surmise how something similar could ever happen to PostgreSQL. It seems to me that situation is at least worth examining from time to time. Best. -- Ron Peterson https://www.yellowbank.com/
2008-01-16_23:17:33-0500 "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:04:41 -0500 > Ron Peterson <ron.peterson@yellowbank.com> wrote: > > > > > You realize that a corporation is able to donate money any time > > > they want? > > > > Really? I didn't know that. :) > > http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate > > It is 501c3 and everything. Yes, yes. I was just attempting to inject a little fourth grade level rhetorical humor. My jokes just aren't funny - I should know that by now. -- Ron Peterson https://www.yellowbank.com/
Ron Peterson wrote: > 2008-01-16_23:17:33-0500 "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>: > My point was that MySQL could be an acquisition target because they have > a clearly defined organizational structure; and that they are much more > valuable to Sun as an acquisition than as a charity case. Agreed. > Lacking any > formal structure, it's difficult to surmise how something similar could > ever happen to PostgreSQL. It seems to me that situation is at least > worth examining from time to time. > Do not agree. The main body of the community all agree that the "code" is best left without a formal body. If a company wants to buy into PostgreSQL they are going to have to do it the old fashion way, earn it. (code contribution, lots of contributors, lots of contributors, being a good community member, sucking it up when they are wrong) Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake
Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > Lacking any > > formal structure, it's difficult to surmise how something similar could > > ever happen to PostgreSQL. It seems to me that situation is at least > > worth examining from time to time. > > > > Do not agree. The main body of the community all agree that the "code" > is best left without a formal body. If a company wants to buy into > PostgreSQL they are going to have to do it the old fashion way, earn it. > > (code contribution, lots of contributors, lots of contributors, being a > good community member, sucking it up when they are wrong) Agreed. Our current setup makes us almost destruction-proof. If you look at the databases which have declined since we started in 1996, you can see this is a valuable attribute. In fact if you look just at MySQL, MySQL has done some things that have hurt their adoption. While everyone makes mistakes, MySQL's hurtful actions were done for motivations (profitability) which are not shared by Postgres. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
jd@commandprompt.com ("Joshua D. Drake") writes:
> On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:04:41 -0500
> Ron Peterson <ron.peterson@yellowbank.com> wrote:
>> A purchase gives Sun a certain exclusivity that they could never buy
>> with a mere donation.
> I don't argue that it is an interesting strategic move for Sun. They
> paid entirely too much but that isn't really relevant for us.
I think it puts Sun on Oracle's "radar" with perspective as a target,
as opposed to their usual "partner" status, which seems not so good to
me.
I wonder how it will all interact with the past posturing of MySQL AB
that was *very* much fine tuned towards pointing at an intersection
with SAP AG. (MANY of the things MySQL AB was doing between 2003 and
about 2006 seemed to have that focus, between involvement with
SAP-DB/MaxDB and the set of MySQL(tm) enhancements that seemed
exquisitely targeted at making MySQL a potential platform for SAP's
applications...)
> What is important as that all this is going to do is invigorate our
> community further. I guarantee you we will start to see even more
> influx of new community members with this purchase.
I'm inclined to watch what happens for a while before drawing such
conclusions.
Sun's "open source" involvements have come with enough caveats that
I'm inclined to expect a continuation of policies likely to turn off
non-paying users. And an important reason behind paying $1B is if
they're mighty interested in growing the revenues from paying users...
But the shape of what will actually happen seems pretty difficult to
predict.
--
"cbbrowne","@","linuxdatabases.info"
http://linuxfinances.info/info/nonrdbms.html
"He who writes the code gets to choose his license, and nobody else
gets to complain." -- Linus Torvalds
Chris Browne wrote: > I'm inclined to watch what happens for a while before drawing such > conclusions. > > Sun's "open source" involvements have come with enough caveats that > I'm inclined to expect a continuation of policies likely to turn off > non-paying users. And an important reason behind paying $1B is if > they're mighty interested in growing the revenues from paying users... I think the biggest impact might be less enthusiasm from Red Hat and Linux vendors toward MySQL because Sun is a direct Linux competitor. -- Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 12:35 -0500, Chris Browne wrote: > And an important reason behind paying $1B Insightful stuff. $1B is too round a number to be a real valuation, IMHO. I'm not really certain they would do that. Certainly Sun would be foolish to pay $1B for MySQL when Oracle and IBM had already paid so much less for profitable and strategic pieces of the MySQL cake. Shame they didn't pay $999 million. We could go a long way with $1m. :-) -- Simon Riggs 2ndQuadrant http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
simon@2ndquadrant.com (Simon Riggs) writes: > On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 12:35 -0500, Chris Browne wrote: >> And an important reason behind paying $1B > > Insightful stuff. $1B is too round a number to be a real valuation, > IMHO. I'm not really certain they would do that. They didn't; as is pretty standard, in such matters, the total "valuation" was comprised of a combination of cash and Sun stock options. Mind you, there is $800M of cash involved, and *only* $200M worth of stock options. I expect that the ratios frequently go the other way... > Certainly Sun would be foolish to pay $1B for MySQL when Oracle and > IBM had already paid so much less for profitable and strategic > pieces of the MySQL cake. I'll give you strategic, but I'm not so sure about profitability. In a way, we may now find out more, because rather than being a private firm, MySQL now is rolled into a publicly traded one... -- "cbbrowne","@","linuxdatabases.info" http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html "Few people can be happy unless they hate someother person, nation or creed." -- Bertrand Russell
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:20:07 -0500 Chris Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> wrote: > simon@2ndquadrant.com (Simon Riggs) writes: > > On Thu, 2008-01-17 at 12:35 -0500, Chris Browne wrote: > >> And an important reason behind paying $1B A follow up to this. Selena just got quoted by EWeek on this very topic. As did our Lead Integrator? Bruce Momjian. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Database/PostgreSQL-Community-Ponders-Effect-of-MySQL-Acquisition/ Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake - -- The PostgreSQL Company: Since 1997, http://www.commandprompt.com/ Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate SELECT 'Training', 'Consulting' FROM vendor WHERE name = 'CMD' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFHkNhUATb/zqfZUUQRAkMtAJ9DSdFfvs5LfzsjyENXzsRM0lCYeQCgiC5t rPVr6nwZAqH4yJDc8Jyapco= =+B8y -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----