Oracle already owned the most important component of MySQL: InnoDB. MySQL AB, the independent firm, never owned the core technology upon which their product depended. Oracle has had a death grip on MySQL for years.

Sun also had a competing product at the time of their MySQL AB acquisition: Their Postgresql consulting/support group. Nothing happened to it when they bought MySQL AB. Large companies can sustain heterogeny.

>>Oracle already owned the most important component of MySQL: InnoDB

I don't keep us as well as I should.

Falcon seemed like the upcoming champion (the ideas seemed relevant for modern systems) and I thought it ought to be a good/better substitute for InnoDB.

It didn't work well enough?

I guess it is just an academic question, now.

Falcon was only started in order to counter this threat. It would have been several more years for it to gain traction.

Now that it's all under the same roof, it's moot.

I think MySQL users either regard themselves as MySQL users or MySQL customers, but not 'Sun customers' per se.

It seems pretty conspicuously absent, in fact.

MySQL's best hope is that Sun throws it overboard before the acquisition completes; there's no way it will survive within Oracle -- it competes directly as a zero-cost alternative to Oracle's core products.

Well, no, not at all. If you are an "enterprise" then you are paying $$$ for the "enterprise" version of MySQL. If you aren't, then you'd never buy Oracle anyway, you don't need it. At the end of the day MySQL is pretty irrelevant to Oracle's plans for Sun.

Oracle would be crazy to give up MySQL. Controlling it, they can ensure it'll never compete with their high-end products, while taking the air out of the entry db market.

postgres works great and keeps getting better. Oracle and Sun are both irrelevant to most startups.