Journal toby's Journal: Widenius on "selfless" quest to destroy GPL MySQL "in order to save it" 3
It's not "his baby" any more!
And the "selfless" argument accepts as a given that Oracle will let MySQL die on the vine. There are many rational reasons why they would not.
If Oracle's intentions are opaque, Widenius' motives are no less opaque. He risks serious embarrassment himself by advocating that the EU, as Deus ex machina, strip the GPL, the last layer of protection for the MySQL community and platform. To that extent this issue is *very much* "about Open Source"!
It's time to let go and build "what comes after MySQL". Even a casual observer can see conventional RDBMS architectures straining to keep up with today's data environments, hence the growth of the NoSQL movement. If a fraction of the talent already shed by MySQL AB, combined with the brains at Primebase, and all the other community contributors can rise to that challenge, Oracle may easily find itself on the defensive once more - to the market's gain!
Mr Widenius, you've created one technology so incredibly disruptive that Oracle (the market leader) finally had to buy it - why not move on and create the next one? You already have the support and respect of geeks and suits alike. But you won't keep it by insisting on this contrarian, easily misconstrued campaign.
indeed, (Score:2)
But I wrote this before Sheeri's article appeared; it's linked from the 2nd comment there. :)
in the words of Matt Asay... (Score:2)
It's hard to compete with a group of self-selected, highly focused developers who can focus on good code, not good financial quarters. [cnet.com]