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Oracle Acquires Innobase

Posted by jamie on Fri Oct 07, 2005 03:30 PM
from the heavy-user dept.
Databases Programming Software IT
A short time ago, Oracle announced its acquisition of Innobase, the Finnish company that makes the GPL'd InnoDB table storage engine. Among MySQL users, the separately-written InnoDB is almost as popular as the native MyISAM engine, and is considered to be more advanced for most purposes. Slashdot has, except for search, run entirely on InnoDB for the past year or two so we're as concerned about this as anybody. Brian Aker, former Slashdot coder and current Director of Architecture for MySQL AB, comments: "InnoDB is GPL, so once again the beauty of the open source market is at play: there is no lock in, and we can continue to develop Innodb as we see fit. The code is out there and we plan on continuing to support it. The largest database vendor in the world just confirmed that the market for open source databases exists."
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  • Slashdot has, except for search, run entirely on InnoDB for the past year or two so we're as concerned about this as anybody.

    Why? InnoDB is GPL'ed.

    • Re:/. concerned? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Trigun (685027)
      Slashcode development is a tad bit different than database development.

    • Re:/. concerned? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by kwerle (39371) <kurt@CircleW.org> on Friday October 07 2005, @03:35PM (#13742506) Homepage Journal
      Why? InnoDB is GPL'ed.

      But the minds behind it are not. If Oracle snaps up key talent behind innodb, it could mean a big slowdown for that aspect of MySQL.

      Oracle isn't stupid. They didn't want the InnoDB buildings. They didn't even really want InnoDB itself - that's in the wild. They probably DID want the brains behind it, or the tech they were about to release.

      • Re:/. concerned? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Watts Martin (3616)
        This is probably accurate. Oracle was most recently in the news, remember, saying that they wanted to "crush" Salesforce.com's competing CRM products.

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/30/oracle_cru sh_salesforce/ [theregister.co.uk]

        Since you can't really buy and destroy open source software, they may well be trying to throw a monkey wrench into it. InnoDB brought ACID compliance to MySQL, and the new 5.0 release brings, well, SQL to MySQL. Despite what I'm sure Oracle would say, this is a problem for them.

        I know there are c

    • Re:/. concerned? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF (813746) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:38PM (#13742526)

      Why? InnoDB is GPL'ed.

      Just off the top of my head I'd say that they are worried about the possibility that future development and bug fixes will go to a closed source branch, that development might grind to a halt as the original developers are reassigned, that the nature of development might change and move in directions not beneficial to Slashdot as a user, or that something else will result from this change.

      It is wise to be concerned when you technology provider undergoes a drastic change. The GPL helps, since the project will likely continue as a active, GPL project in any case, but losing most of the experienced developers could really slow things down. That is not to say that it will. In fact, development might speed up and get better. It is just understandable to be concerned.

    • Re:/. concerned? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jamie (78724) <jamie@slashdot.org> on Friday October 07 2005, @03:43PM (#13742561) Homepage Journal
      Because continuing InnoDB development is critical to upcoming versions of MySQL, and development of a database engine requires more than simply GPL'd code. In the past, Heikki Tuuri's company Innobase has been eager to develop InnoDB specifically for MySQL's needs, because MySQL was in a sense the only "platform" it ran on. But that's not likely to be true in the near future, or at the very least, not necessarily true.

      I do know there are at least several developers at MySQL AB who are intimately familiar with the InnoDB code, but I don't know if there are enough to fork the code and continue its development in the same vein as before. Frankly I will be surprised if this doesn't slow down 5.x development [livejournal.com] at least a little, while MySQL AB shuffles people around to get them up to speed.

  • So why are concerned ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by frodo from middle ea (602941) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:33PM (#13742481) Homepage
    Acquisitions happen.

    The code is GPLed so what exactly is your concern ?

    • Because if my imports or exports fail (just like user defined tables with nested arrays or OO tables) because of these I'm going to be pissed. RMAN isn't widely used with other database systems within my company, and we're already having to deal with other systems wanting to hand us datapump exports when our models aren't scheduled to go to 10g until next year.

      That's why I am concerned. There's other table types that break import/export, if I can get an assurance that this isn't one of them , then fine.
      B

    • Here's why (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Work Account (900793)
      "Because continuing InnoDB development is critical to upcoming versions of MySQL, and development of a database engine requires more than simply GPL'd code. In the past, Heikki Tuuri's company Innobase has been eager to develop InnoDB specifically for MySQL's needs, because MySQL was in a sense the only "platform" it ran on. But that's not likely to be true in the near future, or at the very least, not necessarily true.

      I do know there are at least several developers at MySQL AB who are intimately familiar w
    • C'mon, man. Most large GPL'd projects are supported financially by some corporate interest(s). Sure, the code is out there. That doesn't mean the project will be a continued sucess, or that future development won't suffer. If Oracle drops the GPL'd version, the DB is in a precarious situation. You don't think everyone using the DB has their own team that compiles and develops it, do you?

  • Consern? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gnpatton (796694) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:35PM (#13742500)
    I guess the consern would be that InnoDB isn't going to get as much support as it should be. But as the original story puts it, the MySQL team intends to continue support with InnoDB. As a heavy MySQL user I can see where the worry would come from but I'm not worried because I believe the MySQL team will hold true to their word.
    • I believe the MySQL team will hold true to their word

      That would look better this way - "I believe the MySQL team will hopefully hold true to their word."

  • Purchase good for InnoDB (Score:3, Insightful)

    by totallygeek (263191) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:35PM (#13742505) Homepage
    I think this is excellent, and will only lead to an expansion of InnoDB functionality. The speed over MyIsam coupled with the direct disk access is great, and was a huge factor in choosing MySQL over some others in recent software development. I have not ever heard of Oracle purchasing technology to squash it, either.

  • Somebody set us up the Innobase. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mulletproof (513805) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:36PM (#13742511) Homepage Journal
    All your Innobase are belong to us. Or them. One of the two.
    (Ok, yeah, you can shoot me now.)
  • I don't remember the exact details of the article from a few months back, but will this have any effect on MySQL's befriending SCO?

  • Time for PostgreSQL (Score:5, Insightful)

    by splante (187185) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:37PM (#13742519)
    Time for /. to convert to PostgreSQL!
    • /. is written in PERL right, it's written with DBI right? It should be trivial in theory right?

      You know what would be cool? Keep switching the backends of /. to different open source databases and report on the results.

      • Re:Time for PostgreSQL (Score:4, Informative)

        by Dom2 (838) on Saturday October 08 2005, @03:19AM (#13745547) Homepage
        To say this shows a lack of real world database experience. Whilst it's simple to change the connection to point at a different database using DBI [cpan.org], once you're actually connected the SQL that you have to use varies in many subtle and incompatible ways.

        Probably the first one that everybody comes across is the difference in the integer primary key. In MySQL, it's auto_increment, in PostgreSQL it's a serial datatype with a backing sequence. If you want to know the primary key value after creating a new row, it's accessed in different ways. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

        Thankfully, because they're all based on a common standard language (SQL), it's possible. It's just still a lot of very hard work. But it's not impossible.

        If it was easy, you'd see many, many more open source projects supporting something other than MySQL (which bugs me as PostgreSQL user :-)

        -Dom

  • haha! (Score:2, Funny)

    by larry bagina (561269)
    InnoDB is GPL, so once again the beauty of the open source market is at play: there is no lock in, and we can continue to develop Innodb as we see fit. The code is out there and we plan on continuing to support it..

    Of Course, InnoDB exists because MySQL's effort (MyISAM) is such a piece of shit.

    • Re:haha! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Z00L00K (682162) on Friday October 07 2005, @04:15PM (#13742777) Homepage
      The difference between InnoDB and MyISAM is not that InnoDB is better, they are both good, but have different strategies. MyISAm isn't a fully transactional solution, which may be bad, but the advantage is that MyISAM is very fast, which is the key issue in some cases.

      MySQL is also supporting several other databases as backend, all with different advantages and disadvantages.

  • Confirmation? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jlowery (47102) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:39PM (#13742542)
    "The code is out there and we plan on continuing to support it. The largest database vendor in the world just confirmed that the market for open source databases exists."

    I would think that it was the users of InnoDB that confirmed that the market for open source databases exist.

    Also, what about IBM and their open-sourcing of Cloudscape? Don't they count?

  • DBMS market going open source? (Score:4, Informative)

    by martenmickos (467191) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:40PM (#13742543)

    Is this yet another sign that the DBMS vendors are going open source? This reaffirms our thinking of where open source is going. Great to see Oracle legitimise the open source database space as they did with Linux.
     
    Marten Mickos, MySQL AB

    • Re:DBMS market going open source? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 3770 (560838) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:56PM (#13742659) Homepage

      Great to see Oracle legitimise the open source database space as they did with Linux

      There is one key difference. Oracle isn't in direct competition with Linux.

      There is a chance that Oracle has some plan for InnoDB that will help Oracle's bottom line without actually harming MySQL. But if I had to guess, I would guess that the strategy in some way involves Oracle helping Oracle by harming MySQL. Or rather by slowing MySQL's progress. Because I don't believe that this isn't something that MySQL can't deal with.

      While that is a great flattery, I can't help but think that brave words such as "Great to see Oracle legitimise the open source database space as they did with Linux" feels just a little bit like putting up a brave face. Because it would almost certainly have been better for MySQL if Oracle hadn't bought InnoDB.

  • oy vey (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana (662181) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:40PM (#13742544)
    Brian Aker, former Slashdot coder

    Uh, no offense guys- but that's something I wouldn't put on my resume. Slashcode has seen near zero feature additions, is widely known to have some of the worst perl code ever written, is grossly underdocumented...

    and current Director of Architecture for MySQL AB, comments: "InnoDB is GPL, so once again the beauty of the open source market is at play: there is no lock in, and we can continue to develop Innodb as we see fit.

    You can, sure. But who has been putting the majority of development time into InnoDB? MySQL, or Innobase? If it's Innobase, and Oracle says to Innobase, "walk away from this", you're screwed. "Open Source" doesn't mean "if the primary supporter walks away, the project keeps going."

    The largest database vendor in the world just confirmed that the market for open source databases exists."

    Um...no, they didn't. They thought buying Innobase made business sense, so they did it. Inferring "OMG Oracle thinks we're cool!" is, well, quite the stretch. For all we know, Oracle could be handing out pinkslips as we speak, or folding Innobase talent into Oracle...who knows.

    • Support for InnoDB is one of the primary features people use MySQL for. I know I would drop MYSQL in a heart beat if they dropped InnoDB or even if some new critical bug was found and MYSQL didn't fix it. They really don't have a choice but to pick up InnoDB development if Innobase drops it (they might have to change its name though, which could cause some confusion)

    • Re:oy vey (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blackmonday (607916) on Friday October 07 2005, @04:08PM (#13742735) Homepage
      Slashcode is as good as it needs to be, and no better. It serves millions of web pages each month (day?). I'd be glad to put a site of this popularity on my resume.

      Come to think of it, if other apps were "as good to be, and no better", there would be a lot of companies saving good money right now.

    • Re:oy vey (Score:5, Informative)

      by pudge (3605) * <pudgeNO@SPAMslashdot.org> on Friday October 07 2005, @04:26PM (#13742845) Homepage Journal
      Slashcode has seen near zero feature additions

      Huh. Just in the last month alone, we've seen the addition of support for CSS and Atom, and the beginnings of a brand-new replacement for formkeys (called reskeys). And that's just September. So, um ... no.

      is widely known to have some of the worst perl code ever written

      Only among people who don't know perl, or Slash.

      is grossly underdocumented...

      True enough.

      But the last thing being true does not remedy the fatal flaws in the other two assertions, which prove you to be quite ignorant about the subject.
        • Of course, that was slashcode 1.x ...

          Right, so like I said, the only people who say Slash has some of the worst perl code ever written don't know perl, or Slash. As you've not looked at the code in about five years, it's quite true that you don't know Slash.

        • Re:oy vey (Score:3, Interesting)

          by pudge (3605) *
          I love the new CSS layout, truly I do. But the fact that it took a few years to implement it ...

          No such fact exists, in fact. It took a few months, not a few years.

          Had it been built on a solid MVC platform, the project should have taken a couple of days

          That's nonsense. The great majority of the time spent on it was two things: making sure the code produced text (comments, stories, and so on) that was valid HTML 4.01 strict (which includes processing all old data), modifying the code to make CSS well-integ

  • Interesting questions come up (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MemoryDragon (544441) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:41PM (#13742549)
    The MySQL business model works following way. They enforce the GPL and if you want to get out of the GPL you have to pay, just like qt, but MySQL has a problem there. Qt has its own codebase, MySQL does not, they rely on Berkley DB and on InnoDB, obviously there must be some relicensing contract between them so that people can relicense the InnoDB code non GPL, so what if Oracle refuses this relicensing in the future. MySQL might have a problem bigger than it seems on their hand. BDB is not the best repo (ask the SVN guys) and InnoDB is now in the hands of Oracle. Not that I would be sad to see MySQL going the way of the dodo, but this issue is bigger than it seems.

  • InnoDB and MySQL relationship (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dvanatta (785378) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:45PM (#13742581)
    "InnoDB's contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate an extension of that relationship."

    Hmmm... I think InnoDB will cost MySQL a little bit more next year.

  • More mergers than you can shake a stick at... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Cutting_Crew (708624) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:47PM (#13742594)
    Oracle pulls this off..
    Autodesk acquires Alias(maya)
    Cingular buys out At&t wireless
    NewsCorp purchases IGN
    Yahoo purchases Konfabulator
    IBM buys Gluecode
    Verison acquires MCI
    EA buys Digital Illusions
    Google Acquires Keyhole Corp
    Adobe buys Macromedia
    GameStop buys EB
    Yahoo buys Flickr
    Yahoo buys MusicMatch
    Warner Bros buys Monolith Productions

    Mergers Left: 1. Sony buys Nintendo
    2. Microsoft buys Yahoo
    3. Google buys Sun
    4. EA buys Hollywood
    5. Walmart buys K-mart
    6. Google buys Sony
    7. Microsoft buys EA (very geographically convenient)
    8. Walmart goes Bankrupt.
    Google vs Microsoft vs RIAA Judge Judy presiding.

  • Sure (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The Bungi (221687) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Friday October 07 2005, @03:50PM (#13742617) Homepage
    ... except that Oracle might pull a 'MySQL' on MySQL themselves and kindly inform them that if they intend to use InnoDB for commercial purposes they'll have to pay up. IOW, Oracle might require licensing for every commercial (no-GPL) version of MySQL sold.

    The biggest database vendor just confirmed that you can be too clever for your own good when you design your licensing schemes.

  • Ikea of Databases? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Unknown Relic (544714) on Friday October 07 2005, @03:58PM (#13742676) Homepage
    Could this be one of the reasons behind recent comments [slashdot.org] regarding MySQL wanting to be the Ikea of databases and not wanting to compete with Oracle?

  • Ah, so that's why (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Overly Critical Guy (663429) on Friday October 07 2005, @04:07PM (#13742723)
    Now we see the reason for all the endless pro-MySQL articles on Slashdot. They've been using it since the site's inception, despite superior alternatives like PostgreSQL.

    If MySQL hooking up with SCO wasn't enough to steer people away, this probably won't either.

  • Oracle Community Edition... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OneFix at Work (684397) on Friday October 07 2005, @04:38PM (#13742931)
    This could be a way of Oracle gaining "street cred" with the OSS crowd. Oracle sees that OSS is gaining in popularity...PostgreSQL and MySQL end up being the backends for most OSS apps that require a database...which leaves Oracle out of the picture...

    Oracle may be thinking of releasing an OSS version of their database server. What better way to start off than by buying the developer of one of the most popular database formats for OSS.

    Their "new" business model would probably be similar to MySQL and they may even sell a new version of InnoDB to MySQL every now and then (an older version of course)...

    In their eyes, this would be a good way of Oracle being written into OSS apps...Write a new version of Oracle database that is identical to the commercial version in every way except that you are using InnoDB as the backend...

    This happened a while back when Ford bought Jaguar. At the time Dodge was working on the Viper and word was that it would be a "Mustang killer". Ford was scared to death that one of their most popular automobiles would be outsold by the Viper. There was very little known about the vehicle at the time, but what was known was that it was going to be a big engine...bigger than a V-8... Ford knew that the only company with a V-12 was Jaguar and figured that this was the most likely powerplant to be used in the vehicle (or some variation). They decided that if Dodge was going to make a killing with the Viper then they might as well get in on the action by licensing the engine design for every Viper produced...So, Ford bought Jaguar...of course, Dodge went with their own V-10 design...some say this was always then intent, others say the original design called for a V-12...

  • A warning to the KDE project? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CyricZ (887944) on Friday October 07 2005, @05:03PM (#13743070)
    Perhaps the KDE project should take this as a warning, too. They're also heavily dependent on a third-party piece of software: TrollTech's QT.

    Suppose TrollTech were to be bought out tomorrow, and they stopped releasing their work as open source software. While QT is open source software and could thus be forked, would the KDE project be able to muster together the talent to continue developing it? Or would it stagnate, in turn harming the entire KDE project? Has the project looked into the possibility of that happening, and if so, what are their contingency plans?

  • Eat your competition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 (527695) on Friday October 07 2005, @05:34PM (#13743248) Homepage Journal
    While they cant remove existing work, they can kill any future development. AND they can absorb the developers into the corporation and cut off any short term outside projects with a 'non compete' agreement.

  • More subtle then we think (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jvs (10267) on Friday October 07 2005, @05:39PM (#13743288)
    Could this be more subtle then we all realise? Maybe the big O is just turning the screws on SAP. Think about it. SAP is "in bed" with MySQL AB via the transfer of MaxDB. Now if SAP were thinking of pushing MySQL as the db of choice to seperate themselves from Oracle, what better way to scupper them - buy the transaction engine technology (of choice) in MySQL.

    Remember SAP is the only competition left for Oracle in the Apps space.

    But then again, maybe I'm just paranoid!
    • This is totally wrong as far as the typical sorts of "use cases" for MySQL(tm) are concerned.

      If you're creating a BLOG or web forum, foreign keys and transaction management aren't vital in the way they are for financial applications.

      It is so easy (see the MySQL Gotchas [sql-info.de] site) to accidentally lose transactional and foreign key support even if you installed InnoDB libraries that it is pretty dangerous to depend on the notion that any of the "data integrity" functionality is actually in place.

      And

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