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Topic: Oracle

Ellison puts Screven over mySQL

Summary: A start-up subsisting on pizza, even a small open source project, can be discovered by the masses and become world famous within a year. Will there be an easy migration path, or will that path be slammed shut? Ask Edward Screven.

Dana Blankenhorn

By Dana Blankenhorn for Linux and Open Source |

Turns out the biggest surprise in the Oracle-Sun drama was not the split within open source over mySQL.

It was the split within Oracle over mySQL. (Picture from Oracle's Collaborate 2007 event.)

Ken Jacobs, who was one of CEO Larry Ellison's first 20 hires, says he is leaving the company after seeking to run mySQL and being turned down.

Jacobs gets credit for keeping InnoDB moving forward after its 2005 acquisition. This was a big win for open source.

InnoDB was an integral part of mySQL, and there were fears then Oracle planned to box-in mySQL by controlling its storage engine. But that didn't happen, Oracle was able to claim open source bonafides.

Now Edward Screven, Oracle's chief corporate architect, is in charge of mySQL, which could lead to the same fears expressed over InnoDB when Jacobs took it on.

Screven, however, also has some open source mojo. He was interviewed by Linux Foundation head Jim Zemlin in 2008, touting the company's commitment to Linux. "We didn’t view GPL as something that was going to get in the way of business in the least," he told Zemlin.

Trouble is that while Linux is an enterprise product, and has long had substantial server market share, mySQL began as something smaller and simpler, not scaled. The code base was moving toward greater scale before Oracle bought it, but during the debate even open source advocates like Matt Asay admitted it wasn't a direct competitor.

This was always at the heart of the dispute. Would open source be allowed to develop a true competitor to Oracle? Would Web start-ups have to make a costly switch from open source as they scaled, or commit to open source in their business plans, raising costs substantially?

Internet success happens in Internet time. A start-up subsisting on pizza, even a small open source project, can be discovered by the masses and become world famous within a year. Will there be an easy migration path, or will that path be slammed shut?

Ask Edward Screven.

Topics: Oracle, Data Centers, Data Management, Enterprise Software, Open Source, Software

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16 comments
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  • Honestly, I don't think

    I just don't think anyone really cares. mySQL is old tech and is being replaced anyhow.
    No_Ax_to_Grind
    Reply Vote

    • Right...

      You are funny
      no_axe_to__grind
      Reply Vote

  • Sad to see Ken Jacobs go

    Sad to see Ken Jacobs go, he's been a fixture at
    Oracle.
    AllureFX
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Ellison puts Screven over mySQL

    Two things:

    Postgres
    PostGIS

    Works for me.
    Tsingi
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Ellison puts Screven over mySQL

    I don't see Oracle killing MySQL off. I do, however, anticipate that they will move to a strategy that either steers MySQL to more of a PL/SQL favoured dialect, or makes Oracle able to handle the MySQL dialect, then the strategy will probably be MySQL for small business with paid support with a migration path to enterprise strength Oracle as requirements and businesses grow.
    Gordon_Fern
    Reply Vote

  • Also need the No Change option.

    Where did all this talk about "migration paths" come from. For fifty million rows and a couple of hundred users there's nothing to beat what we've already got. MySQL is low-cost because it 'just works'. Oracle is high cost because of all the propping-up and fettling.
    peter_erskine@...
    Reply Vote

  • Message has been deleted.

    efsane
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Ellison puts Screven over mySQL

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    zakkiromi
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  • RE: Ellison puts Screven over mySQL

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