A big part of the Internet is built on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl/Python). Now Oracle is trying to buy Sun, which owns MySQL.
It's not in the Internet users interest that one key piece of the net would be owned by an entity that has more to gain by severely limiting and in the long run even killing it as an open source product than by keeping it alive. If Oracle were allowed to acquire MySQL, we would be looking at less competition among databases, which will mean higher license and support prices. In the end it's always the consumers and the small businesses that have to pay the bills, in this case to
Oracle.
If this is the only blog post you read in 2010, then I highly encourage you to read the entire self-interview style blog post by clicking the "via" click above. "Monty" is the guy that started MySQL over 27 years ago.
I personally believe that Oracle can have Sun by should not have MySQL. The one critical part of the LAMP stack is at risk. Without MySQL, we only have Postgres which is great but does not have the same "business" community around it yet. So I encourage you to sign the Save MySQL petition at http://www.helpmysql.org which will be forwarded to the European Commission which must approved the Oracle / Sun deal. Considering the amount of time and money spent by Oracle to get this deal approved the future of MySQL is definitely at risk. Oracle could have quickly gotten the deal done if they had divested MySQL AB immediately, but they willingly have lost an estimated $1 billion in order to get MySQL.
Even if you don't use MySQL, you'll end up giving more money to Microsoft for their DB or pay Oracle for theirs then I highly suggest you sign the petition. The future of free internet is at stake!
