What the hell is up with Oracle lately? First, they stopped giving away the Solaris operating system and now they have some big announcement planned for next week at the MySQL Conference. Should we hide our wallets before we listen? To me, Oracle has morphed into Microsoft II with all of its acquisitions and now its hold on those of us who use Solaris and MySQL. I don't know how loyal I'll continue to be to MySQL, if Oracle does something crazy with it.
Yes, they bought it. Yes, it's theirs. But, don't they have some sort of responsibility to its huge user base to remain faithful to its original charter?
We'll all find out on Tuesday during the conference. I won't be there in person but I'll certainly watch from the sidelines and hold my breath until the beatings stop.
I did recently write, "20 Reasons Why Oracle is the World's Largest Open Source Company." And, yes, they are but they aren't necessarily good stewards of that tremendous responsibility.
Instead of just complaining, I'll tell you what I'd like for Oracle to do.
1. Keep MySQL Free - Offer support as an option but don't require it as a condition of use.
2. Maintain OpenSolaris - OpenSolaris is a fine operating system with enterprise capabilities and features not found on any other system.
3. Fix Java - It's too slow. I hate waiting on it. It also needs to be simplified. It's grown into a monstrosity of Krakatoa proportions.
4. Stay the Course with SPARC Hardware - There are too many SPARC customers to drop this major Unix platform. Though it's suffered some setbacks in recent years with the widespread use of Linux on x86 hardware, SPARC is still a viable and needed platform.
5. Stop Acquiring Companies - Good grief, how much do you need? How about focusing your efforts on what you have and making it great instead of grabbing a bunch of products just to build some sort of a pseudo empire.
I don't want to lock up my wallet every time Oracle gobbles another company that owns and supports products that I like. I don't want to have to guard my previously open source downloads like some post WWIII irradiated freak guarding my food. I'd rather carry a torch for a product and not for protection from its owners.
Let that which is free, stay free. Make money off of the other stuff. Be a good steward. Stay the course. A thousand points of light. Sorry, I had a flashback.
What do you think Oracle's big MySQL announcement will be on Tuesday during the conference next week? Are you going? If you are, how'd you like to report live to me on my podcast?
