In this article I am responding to many parts of Monty’s post at http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-keep-internet-free.html which are just plain not true, or are exaggerations.
I will give my own answers to the self-interview questions Monty provides, as I feel he is using his name and popularity to spreading fear that is not warranted.
Q: Why don’t you trust that Oracle would be a good owner of MySQL?
I cannot say whether or not Oracle would kill MySQL. However, I have already stated I believe Oracle will not kill MySQL. This is based on the fact that Oracle has had the chance to kill MySQL for several years, by making InnoDB proprietary, and has not.

In this article I am responding to many parts of Monty’s post at http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-keep-internet-free.html which are just plain not true, or are exaggerations.
I will give my own answers to the self-interview questions Monty provides, as I feel he is using his name and popularity to spreading fear that is not warranted.
Q: Why don’t you trust that Oracle would be a good owner of MySQL?
I cannot say whether or not Oracle would kill MySQL. However, I have already stated I believe Oracle will not kill MySQL. This is based on the fact that Oracle has had the chance to kill MySQL for several years, by making InnoDB proprietary, and has not.

Folks can debate until they are blue in the fact about whether or not it is in Oracle’s best interest to kill MySQL. Actually, I see more logic in the arguments that Oracle should kill MySQL, than in the arguments why it should not. But the fact remains that Oracle has had better opportunities to kill MySQL and has not. The “why” does not really matter; Oracle has put in development effort into making MySQL better, with InnoDB, instead of killing off MySQL — years before Oracle had any possible ownership.

The bottom line: As both a community member of MySQL, and a service provider, I am not worried about Oracle buying Sun and acquiring MySQL in the process. There is no validity to the argument that Oracle will slow down or stop MySQL development — it is not possible, with various forks already in heavy development, and it is not probable, because Oracle has owned the InnoDB codebase for 4 years and has not slowed that development down.
My bias
I use MySQL, and want to see it continue to be developed. I work for The Pythian Group, providing DBA services to clients running MySQL. Together with my MySQL colleagues at The Pythian Group, the services provided run the gamut from rotating logs, monitoring, performance tuning, designing and implementing and optimizing database architectures and schemas and queries and debugging problems throughout the full stack. The only service we do not provide is code patches.

The bottom line: As both a community member of MySQL, and a service provider, I am not worried about Oracle buying Sun and acquiring MySQL in the process. There is no validity to the argument that Oracle will slow down or stop MySQL development — it is not possible, with various forks already in heavy development, and it is not probable, because Oracle has owned the InnoDB codebase for 4 years and has not slowed that development down.
My bias
I use MySQL, and want to see it continue to be developed. I work for The Pythian Group, providing DBA services to clients running MySQL. Together with my MySQL colleagues at The Pythian Group, the services provided run the gamut from rotating logs, monitoring, performance tuning, designing and implementing and optimizing database architectures and schemas and queries and debugging problems throughout the full stack. The only service we do not provide is code patches.

The bottom line: As both a community member of MySQL, and a service provider, I am not worried about Oracle buying Sun and acquiring MySQL in the process. There is no validity to the argument that Oracle will slow down or stop MySQL development — it is not possible, with various forks already in heavy development, and it is not probable, because Oracle has owned the InnoDB codebase for 4 years and has not slowed that development down.
My bias
I use MySQL, and want to see it continue to be developed. I work for The Pythian Group, providing DBA services to clients running MySQL. Together with my MySQL colleagues at The Pythian Group, the services provided run the gamut from rotating logs, monitoring, performance tuning, designing and implementing and optimizing database architectures and schemas and queries and debugging problems throughout the full stack. The only service we do not provide is code patches.

According to the official lifecycle calendar at http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/lifecycle/#calendar, active support for MySQL 5.0 (including regular binary updates) will end on December 31st, 2009, which is about 3 weeks away.
Many folks are still using MySQL 5.0.45, as until October that was the package that came with RedHat. That was released in July 2007, over 2 years ago!
Upgrading to MySQL 5.1 is not difficult, though it requires more steps than just upgrading the packages.
There is a list with all the changes made that might affect the upgrade process at http://www.pythian.com/news/1414/new-in-mysql-51-sheeris-presentation/. This includes which variable names have been deprecated and changed, as well as how to upgrade stored procedures, functions, triggers and views so they work properly in MySQL 5.1.

According to the official lifecycle calendar at http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/lifecycle/#calendar, active support for MySQL 5.0 (including regular binary updates) will end on December 31st, 2009, which is about 3 weeks away.
Many folks are still using MySQL 5.0.45, as until October that was the package that came with RedHat. That was released in July 2007, over 2 years ago!
Upgrading to MySQL 5.1 is not difficult, though it requires more steps than just upgrading the packages.
There is a list with all the changes made that might affect the upgrade process at http://www.pythian.com/news/1414/new-in-mysql-51-sheeris-presentation/. This includes which variable names have been deprecated and changed, as well as how to upgrade stored procedures, functions, triggers and views so they work properly in MySQL 5.1.

According to the official lifecycle calendar at http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/lifecycle/#calendar, active support for MySQL 5.0 (including regular binary updates) will end on December 31st, 2009, which is about 3 weeks away.
Many folks are still using MySQL 5.0.45, as until October that was the package that came with RedHat. That was released in July 2007, over 2 years ago!
Upgrading to MySQL 5.1 is not difficult, though it requires more steps than just upgrading the packages.
There is a list with all the changes made that might affect the upgrade process at http://www.pythian.com/news/1414/new-in-mysql-51-sheeris-presentation/. This includes which variable names have been deprecated and changed, as well as how to upgrade stored procedures, functions, triggers and views so they work properly in MySQL 5.1.

OpenSQLCamp was a huge success! I took videos of most of the sessions (we only had 3 video cameras, and 4 rooms, and 2 sessions were not recorded). Unfortunately, I was busy doing administrative stuff for opensqlcamp for the opening keynote and first 15 minutes of the session organizing, and when I got to the planning board, it was already full….so I was not able to give a session.

• Comparing Non-Relational Databases: MongoDB, Tokyo Tyrant, CouchDB by Igal Koshevoy of Pragmaticraft

OpenSQLCamp was a huge success! I took videos of most of the sessions (we only had 3 video cameras, and 4 rooms, and 2 sessions were not recorded). Unfortunately, I was busy doing administrative stuff for opensqlcamp for the opening keynote and first 15 minutes of the session organizing, and when I got to the planning board, it was already full….so I was not able to give a session.

• Comparing Non-Relational Databases: MongoDB, Tokyo Tyrant, CouchDB by Igal Koshevoy of Pragmaticraft