Sun Microsystems has announced it will acquire MySQL, the internet's fastest growing open source database. Companies ranging from Google to Facebook, with thousands of smaller ones in between, use MySQL to store data for their services and MySQL's popularity continues to grow with some 50,000 copies downloaded every day.
MySQL is the ‘M' in the fabled “LAMP” setup, a collection of open source technologies which many credit for speeding the development of both web 2.0 and the internet as a whole. The LAMP setup is comprised of four main tools which power many of your favorite websites — Linux is the operating system, Apache is the web server, MySQL is the database and PHP or Perl are the common development language. Even with Ruby on Rails and Django gaining in popularity, MySQL remains a popular and common choice of database for today's startups.
The acquisition of MySQL AB gives Sun a solid competitor to Oracle's enterprise database which is closed source and can cost up to $40,000, depending on the licensing you need. By contrast Sun will continue to offer MySQL for free and development will remain an open source effort.
In some ways the estimated $1 billion dollar acquisition brings MySQL home to Sun since the database was originally developed to run on Sun's Solaris operating system. But developers need not worry, Sun doesn't plan to stop development of MySQL for Linux or any of the other platforms on which it currently runs.
An announcement of the MySQL blog calls Sun “a safe haven for MySQL,” and goes on to tout Sun's open source history. Still, it's inevitable that the MySQL community will greet Sun with some suspicion.
For its part Sun is touting a new support package that it plans to unveil for enterprise customers interested in MySQL, many of whom have long hesitated to use the database since it lacked a brand name backer like Sun.
Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has announced through his blog that, “in addition to acquiring MySQL, Sun will be unveiling new global support offerings into the MySQL marketplace.” He goes on to promise that “we'll be investing in both the community, and the marketplace — to accelerate the industry's phase change away from proprietary technology to the new world of open web platforms.”
Schwartz doesn't give any specifics about what Sun plans to do to support the MySQL community, but since the deal won't be official until the third or possibly fourth quarter of this year there will no doubt be plenty of time for Sun to reveal its long term strategy.
One company that won't be thrilled by the news is Oracle, makers of the Oracle database which has managed to seduce a large segment of the enterprise market into the proprietary Oracle on the basis that the open source options lacked support.
With Sun backing the free MySQL option (and offering paid support) Oracle suddenly looks a bit expensive.
So far Sun hasn't made any announcement regarding Solaris and MySQL. Currently Solaris ships with PostgreSQL, another popular open source database (which powers Sun xVM, Sun's virtualization and datacenter automation suite), but it seems likely that MySQL will find its way into future version of Solaris.
For the long term it's tough to say what this announcement means for the MySQL community, particularly the smaller developers. While Sun's track record with Java has been, what some might call, “bumpy” when it comes to the open source component, Java was an in-house development for Sun — one it was initially reluctant to let go of.
MySQL on the other hand, comes with a built-in community and Sun would be wise to listen to and heed the suggestions of that community.
One thing is for sure: MySQL isn't going anywhere and if Sun puts in the time and effort to improve MySQL for enterprise customers, the big 'M' in LAMP has a very bright future indeed.
[via Slashdot. Photo courtesy of MySQL]
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