Let's just save Sun first
I'm a big user customer of Solaris. I would have to say that I have a career made out of it. I am quite interested in seeing Oracle save Sun as the technology stack Sun has collected over the years is just to good to break out and sell off or obsolete in parts - so that will tell you where my viewpoint will come from.
When Sun bought Mysql, there was a lot of upset in the Open Source community, but I did not see Monty complaining about the payout at that point. I am certain that Sun and the representatives for the Mysql company would have had arduous negotiations prior to the sellout of the IP and branding.
I do not recall at any point reading that the Mysql reps argued about what Sun could/could not
do with Mysql after they bought it, otherwise we would already have seen several lawsuits
for breach of contract or whatever the legal jargon is for when you do a deal and then break
the terms and conditions of that deal. Now I suppose there had to have been a "cooling off"
period prior to the Mysql buyout by Sun and I suppose that has passed.
So that basically leaves Monty with is $1.5b or whatever it was and Sun got something it
probably could have just licensed for a lot less.
Now it is all a moot point. Sun is now in the hands of a bigger fish. Oracle bought Sun,
not a bunch of components. Mysql is a brand but it is also basically just another part of the Sun
product suite now, just like any Sun product that was acquired from another party. The Sun guys I spoke to love Mysql and have suggested that it will remain under a GPL style agreement but I do not know how far that will go.
I think it is unlikely Oracle will rename Mysql in the short term - Sun I believe would have. We would probably see (under an existent Sun) something like "Sun JES 7.5 Application Database Layer 5.1.4" or similar brain numbing nomenclature. Oracle will probably maintain the Mysql
name for a bit and then I reckon it will become something else, perhaps "Oracle Application Services Database" just like they have used Apache to do "Oracle Application Server" and the like.
Monty has a fork. He knows what he can do with it. But he took money for his product
and has to live with that fact. I reckon he's just sorry he didn't ask for more......
The Fail is for Monty - I don't feel sorry for him. I am annoyed that Oracle just have not been given full permission to acquire Sun already so I can stop watching people panic everytime
the hold up is mentioned in the media.