Feedback is starting to emerge on the Sun|MySQL front

and it isn’t necessarily all positive. Well, ok, not on the acquisition, but on the current state of affairs prior to the acquisition. This is the interesting aspect of this. Sun is being viewed as a way to save MySQL. Don MacAskill of smugmug has some interesting comments. Quoting Don:

The Laura to which he refers is Laura Thompson, and her blog, tech ramblings. The particular post discusses some of the issues. As MySQL sells a commercial (closed source) version of their database, they cannot necessarily incorporate GPL patches into it without asking the authors for a relicensing. This is not likely to happen. Don notes that Sun listens, and he is going to ask them about this. I have doubts as to whether or not they will be able to do anything unless they make it completely open source, and then simply sell service atop it. Curiously, reading Don’s blog, this is what he wants. The question is, what will Sun do with MySQL. I suspect that this really the important question, and what Sun needs to provide guidance on. Of course, why would anyone spend $1B on a software company only to give away the software afterwards. This is an issue for HPC. There are quite a few projects that depend upon good solid DB foundations.