Reports are starting to filter in regarding Sun Microsystem’s (NSDQ: JAVA) continued hemorrhaging of what they claim is $100 million each month the European Union delays their approval of the merger with Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL). At issue appears to be the fate of MySql and the resulting anti-competitive environment were they to grant approval of the acquisition. While I do feel that having two of the most ubiquitous database systems under one roof could be bad, one consideration apparently overlooked is the nature of MySql itself.
Mysql was originally an open source solution, not at all like Open Solaris, yet another Sun product. No MySql started life like FreeBSD as an open source project and after gaining foothold the developers formed a corporation during those heady Dot Com days to help fund the project. Eventually evolving into one of the first dual licensed projects.
As a result of it’s open source roots MySql will fare better than some of the other products in Sun’s portfolio. Should this stasis continue or Oracle attempt to kill the commercial viability of the database engine, the community would simply rebuild from these ashes. MySql would continue in one form or another. Unfortunately the same could not be said for Open Solaris.
Open Solaris on the other hand was a strictly closed source project much like Microsoft Windows until Sun decided to open up portions of the code base. Imagine for a second what would have happened had more people embraced this technology. Had Sun been successful with their efforts to ‘Open’ their code base and build a substantial following then perhaps we would have seen other large operating system manufacturers follow suit.
However, Sun has utterly failed in that respect garnering little support in the general Open Source community. The would have fared better served retooling Solaris into a commercial entity based on one of the BSDs like FreeBSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD. Often overlooked by Linux junkies the BSDs have commercial friendly licensing which is why Apple embraced FreeBSD as the foundation of Mac OS X. The difference is that Oracle should embrace the chosen BSD operating system and develop Open Solaris as an add-on. In addition they should openly embrace the BSD community fostering active development in the product.
Following this concept Oracle could make Open Solaris a desktop product for installation upon the appropriate BSD operating system. In addition they could offer their code base, releasing much needed drivers into the BSD community. The community would benefit from the advances in the SPARC platform, and Oracle would benefits from the access to a wider variety of system architectures.
On product that will likely not have any issues is Java. Although this product is also in flux as a result of the pending union. It definitely has a strong foot hold in online programming community. Therefore, I firmly believe that Oracle will expand Java’s reach.
Then we get to Star/OpenOffice and let’s be honest like MySql and Java. The office product is one of the true gems of the Sun portfolio. Unfortunately this one is difficult to see where Oracle might take it. They have dabbled in various end user applications before and sadly completely floundered. Years ago I tried their collaboration suite which I thought had good potential as a Microsoft Exchange competitor. However; it failed to gain much traction. Well should Oracle follow my thinking on Open Solaris, then the commercial office product would definitely flourish. I honestly believe that should the commercial product fail the open source community will continue to actively develop the free version.
Finally there is the whole matter of Sun’s hardware line. Although Oracle has stated their intentions are to make improvements and enhancements, Sun partners are jumping to other vendors, faster than rats off a flaming ship wreck. This may be where the true problem resulting from the deal lay. If there aren’t enough partners and dealers left to sell the products then the products will die. How long will Oracle sustain non profitable products?
Ultimately the success of failure of the acquisition is dependent upon how well Oracle plays with the community. There certainly are not guarantees in technology, and my thoughts and Ideas are entirely my own. However, I’d like to think that they have some merit. At the very least I hope that they will spark some discussion about the venture.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mikel King has been working in the Information Services field for over 20 years. He is currently the CEO of Olivent Technologies, a professional creative services partnership in NY. Additionally he is currently serving as the Secretary of the BSD Certification group as well as a Senior Editor for BSD News Network.
Comments
I am FreeBSD user and big fan, but I don't see why Oracle would abandon Oracle Linux and Solaris (soon to be an Oracle product) for FreeBSD. FreeBSD is a fine server platform, but Solaris / Oracle was the hottest DB platform.
When I read this, my jaw nearly hit the floor. "Open Solaris on the other hand was a strictly closed source project much like Microsoft Windows" .... um Solaris might have been but (as per name implies Opensolaris was open source).
" Oracle should embrace the chosen BSD operating system and develop Open Solaris as an add-on" So you want to take an OS and turn it into a add-on to another OS...I can honestly say I have no idea what your talking about. Ripping out parts of kernel from one OS and putting it in another. I guess I don't' know what you mean by "Add-on". I hate to break it to you, but Solaris has a much much higher install base in the Enterprise (which is where most of Oracle install base lives) than the *BSDs. Why would they dump their huge install base of Solaris (which they would now own). To non existent install base OS (in the enterprise) which they wouldn't have control over.
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