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Extinguishing LAMP: Sun Buys MySQL
January 16, 2008
Posted by: Glyn Moody
Wow, I wasn't expecting this one: Sun is buying MySQL:
the biggest news of the day is... we're putting a billion dollars behind the M in LAMP. If you're an industry insider, you'll know what that means - we're acquiring MySQL AB, the company behind MySQL, the world's most popular open source database.
Only a billion? Marten Mickos must by losing his nerve: I always expected MySQL would go for much more than that. On the other hand, it's a shrewd move by Jonathan Schwartz. His posting makes it pretty clear why Sun is doing this:
Until now, no platform vendor has assembled all the core elements of a completely open source operating system for the internet. No company has been able to deliver a comprehensive alternative to the leading proprietary OS. With this acquisition, we will have done just that - positioned Sun at the center of the web, as the definitive provider of high performance platforms for the web economy. For startups and web 2.0 companies, to government agencies and traditional enterprises. This creates enormous potential for Sun, for the global free software community, and for our partners and customers across the globe. There's opportunity everywhere.
Well, maybe. But the clearest opportunity is for Sun, the archetypal dotcom 1.0 company, whose products formed the backbone of the early Internet, which desperately wants to own dotcom 2.0 as well. The trouble is, that post is already occupied, by the LAMP stack – which, with only a few exceptions, is used by every leading Web 2.0 company of note.
By buying MySQL, Sun clearly wants to buy into that stack and success – and push out GNU/Linux, either with OpenSolaris (for those startups that Schwartz mentions), or with the full-fig Solaris for the “traditional” (= boring and conservative) enterprises.
It's a clever plan that makes sense on paper, but it remains to be seen whether LAMP will get junked in favour of SAMP. I doubt it, personally, because despite all the excellent work Sun has done in the field of open source, there remain lingering suspicions, fuelled by its insistence on retaining significant control over both Java and OpenOffice.org.
Exactly how it runs its new MySQL division, and how much it tries to turn LAMP into SAMP will determine once and for all its reputation among the wider open source community – as well as whether those billion dollars were well spent or not.
Update: more here.
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About the author
Glyn Moody Glyn Moody's look at all levels of the enterprise open source stack. The blog will look at the organisations that are embracing open source, old and new alike (start-ups welcome), and the communities of users and developers that have formed around them (or not, as the case may be).
Comments received
Simon Phipps said on Wednesday, 16 January 2008
That's a very negative spin, Glyn. As I have been doing the research leading up to this acquisition, it's been clear that the combined strength of Sun and MySQL is hugely positive for everyone including the FOSS community. As Kaj and Zak point out on their blogs, Sun brings MySQL the mechanisms it needs for growth in a way MySQL could not have achieved alone, even after an IPO. Sun would be crazy to damage MySQL's business with the sort of negative focus you allege; rather, I expect to see new opportunities building on existing strengths. This is increasing the wattage, not extinguishing.
Glyn Moody said on Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Well, it's not meant to be negative, just analytic. It seems to me that one of the big attractions of MySQL for Sun is that it runs most of Web 2.0; your salespeople will naturally try to sell other Sun stuff like hardware and (Open)Solaris to go with it - I certainly would in their shoes.
So whatever other benefits Sun's acquisition of MySQL may have for open source - and I can certainly see several - it may also have the unfortunate effect of weakening GNU/Linux. Hence the analysis.
But I hope you're right that Sun can take MySQL under its wing and derive benefit from it without adversely affecting other open source projects. We shall see.
Leslie P. Polzer said on Wednesday, 16 January 2008
I suppose it doesn't matter much if MySQL goes down because of Sun. PostgreSQL will happily take its place.
And if MySQL gets stronger by this it's all the better.
Victor said on Thursday, 17 January 2008
I would like to ask why the "weakening GNU/Linux" is unfortunate?... competition is good, right?
if it does happen, maybe GNU/Linux wasn't so good after all?... maybe (Open)Solaris (with ZFS, Dtrace, xVM, Glassfish.....) is already a better open solution than GNU/Linux?
if you feel confident about the GNU/Linux quality, I don't see the reason for such fears...
I'm not saying that GNU/Linux is bad, nor that Sun will try to make it disappear... but I don't know... I keep seeing these blogs feeding those unfounded fears about what Sun is going to do, instead of focusing on how much they have given to the FOSS community already (remember that FOSS != linux) that it makes want that they actually do it and displace linux completely...
Glyn Moody said on Friday, 18 January 2008
I agree, competition is good. The problem is that once it owns MySQL, Sun has the potential to tilt the playing field in its favour, making the competition unfair. I don't say that it will, just that it could. And the reason I worry is that its attitude to GNU/Linux has been very ambivalent over the last ten years. Let's hope acquiring MySQL gives them the opportunity to show just how much they can help *boost* GNU/Linux, rather than damage it....