It would be great to see this happen. I have used Linux for years, but it always seems to lag behind because there is no one single unifying force behind it.

Oracle could do it, just like Open Office has become a valid alternative to MS Office.

I am definitely looking forward to this.

It does not make sense to buy something and let it sit for 5 to 10 years. At least not in this industry. I suspect that Oracle has some very specific plans and we will see some major changes beginning of next year already.

Well, the answer is simple: the question is irrelevant, that doesn’t happen.
When they receive GPL contributions, they just refuse them. Giving your copy rights on the code you submit is mandatory for your contribution to be integrated in the product. You basically are not able to decide anymore under what license your code will be distributed.
Hence, they can licence MySQL as they want, may it be proprietary, GPL, BSD or WTFPL.

It’s a very common case, Qt does the exact same thing (gpl/proprietary).
GNU project also requests that all contributors give their copyrights to the FSF (so they can change to whatever new version of the GPL is out), actually, any big project that wants to control its license will ask contributors to give their copyrights.

The main exception being the linux kernel.

Hence, Oracle can do pretty much what they want with MySQL’s code with risking any contamination.

Doesn’t mean that they will do so, but license is definitely not an issue here.

I’d be more interested in you think the chances are of Oracle releasing the Sun ZFS file system for Linux. They are already funding a competitor to ZFS so it kind of makes sense, but it would undermine one of the selling points of OpenSolaris.

Its nice to know that someone agrees with me when I have thoughts like these from time to time. I work as a Software Engineer at a small company and a lot of times I don’t get much chance to express my opinions to anyone who much cares. Thank you.

To state my point a bit further on the fragmentation of Java, I think what I’m really getting at is that Oracle might be able to guide things a bit more toward sticking with an overall scheme for development. Something like how the idea of Java beans permeates the language. If your packages have collections of some kind you need to use a standard interface for example. Things along those lines. That way the innovation that comes from an open development style continues, but the language feels more coherent on the whole.

With that said, of course, I don’t know any details on how to make that kind of thing happen, I just see a possible opportunity. In this case I’m just bouncing ideas around.

Very good additional points, here my quick take on them.

1) Java Fragmentation: Yes, agree, there are a lot of fragmentations, but this is the cost of openness. However, I do not see how Oracle can change that.

2) MySQL as a lower cost alternative: Yes, totally, agree, I might have been miss-leading in my post and I think that a low cost alternative is a better description than an “on-ramp solution”. I am changing the post accordingly with a reference to your comment.

3) Agree with you on OpenOffice, and actually, when I worked at Oracle I presented a plan directly to Larry about just that, investing in OpenOffice to compete with MS Office. Now that Oracle owns it, it would be definitely easier. However, I do not see Oracle a religious company anymore, so, if they go this route it will have to encompass a big investment in MS Office integration as well. And I am not sure that the new ownership of OpenOffice will trigger this interest. This is my 2 cents from my Oracle Collaboration days.

4) Open Solaris: Hardware isn’t my expertise as well, and never really understood why enterprises continued to buy expensive Sun hardware rather to use x64 commodity boxes (beside legacy system maintenance). My latest conversations on the subject, lead me to believe that Oracle will probably end (i.e. silently put in maintenance mode) the Sun x64 (which compete with their current HP/x64/Linux/Storage solution), and will keep Sun’s Middleware for higher-end customers. This new hardware division will allow them to effectively push their “DB Appliance” solution to the market (probably Linux for low-end and Solaris/Sun for high-end).

1) Java. Like Eclipse I am beginning to question the fragmentation. Its getting increasingly harder to decide which directions to go with Java and Eclipse. The Java space seems to be headed toward integration of many technologies while the development of the language has been compartmentalized. The result is that to do any serious work you have to know several dialects of Java. The collections framework is a good analogue for my point. For a time it was non-uniform and doing something in LinkedList was totally different than doing it in Vector. Oracle has the opportunity to possibly streamline this in the future. What I’d like to see is a uniform design perspective in each library. I don’t mean the pattern used but instead the way in which methods are named and implemented to stop the fragmentation occurring as new libraries are being added. This is a particular problem in J2EE.

2)MySQL is definitely interesting and I think there is an opportunity there for a low to mid-level database strategy. MySQL was on its way to trying to compete on equal footing with Oracle, but I think its a mistake to treat it as an equal even though the technology may very well be there. I see MySQL as a lower cost alternative for small to medium enterprises whose budgets can’t meet the requirements of Oracle Enterprise database products. Let’s be honest here, Oracle charges a large amount of money for their products and small to medium businesses simply can’t afford it. MySQL is the answer. A database technology that fits the firms that need it for a lower price without sacrificing quality or performance. Its a win for Oracle. And there was very little up-front cost, the main expense is maintenance. By the way, slowing down development would be a massive mistake. A lot of people consider MySQL the underdog in the database space and Oracle would do well from an image standpoint to foster that perspective.

3)I can definitely see your point about Oracle not caring about the desktop space. I can also agree for the most part. What I’m curious about is the opportunity that OpenOffice affords. You see OpenOffice has been gaining in popularity for quite some time and while those gains have been slow they are significant. If Oracle wanted to head toward the desktop, OpenOffice would be a good launch point. Its mature and stable and it is a direct competitor for Microsoft Office. The free availability aspect of it might be a sticky widget but this one could be interesting to watch.

4)Open Solaris is a hard one to foresee. As for Sun’s hardware, that one is hard as well. There are firms out there reselling Oracle on Sun hardware running their developed software for multiple millions at a pop. So I tend to think that Oracle may stick with the hardware, but I could be wrong for sure. Hardware isn’t my expertise or really even much of an interest of mine. Truthfully in the server space, though, I think Sun had a large chunk cut out for itself. It would be a shame to miss out on the revenue that might offer, but Larry knows those things better than I do, that’s definite.

About Oracle and Solaris, perhaps. I can see Oracle investing in their Oracle DB “Appliance” by offering a Database to Storage solution based on Solaris. They are doing it today with HP and Linux/x64. It will be interesting to see how Solaris/Sun Hardware will fit in. One thing is sure, is that Oracle will not refuse any money from their customers.

None of the closure proposals have succeeded by consensus in bolting functional paradigms onto plain old Java.

By the way lots of eneteprise and as Fujitsu loves Sparc and Solaris so I think is a good move of Oracle/Larry to push Soalris and Sparc.

I think here is different point of view, I dont agree with your View.