Some thoughts about the Sun/Mysql/Linux relation

I´ve read many articles and comments in varius internet publications and communities which speculated about the future of Mysql now Mysql AB will be acquired by Sun. There are some concerns about “Will Mysql be an Solaris-only thing”, what will be the focus of the further mysql development. I thought a little bit about this fears. At first … this thoughts are my own opinion. I don´t now much about this deal. The deal surprised me as well as most people out there. I don´t think that i have much more informations like the ones circulating in the net. Okay … let´s start …. I think, it´s safe to assume, that there will be many optimisations to Solaris. Heck, the mysql people have direct access to engineering of Solaris. We don´t have chinese walls in our engineering business. It´s safe to assume (and alread announced) that Dtrace providers will find their way to mysql. It´s safe to assume, that we will make sure, that Mysql will run as fast as hell on a 256 core Victoria Falls Server. Does this mean, that Mysql will drift away from Linux? Perhaps, in the long range, when more vastly more users mysql on Solaris than on Linux. Who know´s. But even as a die-hard Solaris admin i think this is only a remote possibility. But i saw too many frozen hells and flying pigs to say “Will never happen …” Jonathan wrote more than one time in his blog, that volume drives business. To get volume, you have to be ubiquitous. So you have to be one more than one platform. Look at our software portfolio. Many applications run on several platforms. Even on those of our competition like HPUX or AIX. I don´t think, this policy would change … And you have to ask your self: Why should we do something like that? Linux is a fact, it has a large market share, and there is nothing to do about that in the short range. Making Mysql to Solaris centric would hurt the M. We don´t want the users to use or to migrate from LAMP to LAPP (Linux,Apache,Postgres,P*), because we´ve runined the good performance of Mysql on Linux. We want them on SAMP. You get the point? It would be nonsense to play games with the M. People do the obvious thing, when forced to something in an open market: The do it the different way round. When you try to force them towards Solaris by making Mysql inefficent on Linux, they would use SQlite or Postgres on Linux. They still use Linux, and we´ve lost one customer for our products. We would loose volume with such a game. And you remember: Volume drives business. And you have to keep something different in mind: Linux is not our enemy nor our competition. When you want to run Mysql on Linux. Okay, fine … but please do it on Sun Hardware ;) There are easier ways for Sun to make SAMP more attractive as LAMP without hurt the M, at least for the commercial deployments: Simply make it cheaper … or bundling a basic mysql support in the Solaris Support or giving some extra rebates in the case you order Support for both at the same time. Something like that. Many people think of business like a more civilized form of war. The fight for world domination. But that isn´t true. IBM and Dell sell Solaris, there are Mainframes in Sun Labs to develop hardware and software for them. IBM is a good customer for Sun Hardware. Lotus Notes from IBM runs best and really often on Solaris. Sun x86 Server are supported with RedHat. We sell Microsoft operating systems. Microsoft works with us to make our xVM better by ensuring good compatibility. You get the point. When you can´t beat it, make money out of it! So: The fear for mysql future is understandable but unnescessary. At least when you think twice about it. At the end: We are a public company and there is money to make. And you don´t make money by alienating 90% of the customers of a product. It´s that simple.