Laura Majerus takes a crack at analyzing the meaning of the Progress Software Corp. v. MySQL AB case.

The travel plans for this month have been a bit hectic and so far I've not had a chance to do anything other then the Meetup meeting in Seattle a couple of weeks ago. As a last minute addition I will be at the Mashup meeting in Mountain View next Monday and Tuesday. It also looks like I will be at the dinner/party the night before.

No idea what I am going to be talking about, but I will have my 5.1 slides with me and the first generation of slides for a talk I submitted for OSCON on the Perl Webservices Engine that I've been hacking on, very slowly, for the last three years. Its one of these side projects I write on airplanes when I don't have access to my main MySQL build system at home. Its moved a head since the last anyone saw it.

At first before creating a table that uses non-indexed fields on
disk in MySQL Cluster, it is necessary to create a LOGFILE
GROUP and a TABLESPACE.

CREATE LOGFILE GROUP lg1
ADD UNDOFILE 'undofile.dat'
INITIAL_SIZE 16M
UNDO_BUFFER_SIZE = 1M
ENGINE = NDB;

This creates a file on each node for storing UNDO log records.

CREATE TABLESPACE ts1
ADD DATAFILE 'datafile.dat'
USE LOGFILE GROUP lg1
INITIAL_SIZE 12M
ENGINE NDB;

This creates a file on each node for storing the disk data parts
of a disk-based table. All tables in the TABLESPACE is connected
to the LOGFILE GROUP previously defined.

Now we are ready to define the actual disk-based table.

CREATE TABLE t1 (a int, b int, c int, d int, e int,
primary key(a), index(a,b))
TABLESPACE ts1 STORAGE DISK
…

Matt Asay writes:

Marten Mickos today confirmed with Stephen Shankland @ CNET that Oracle tried to buy MySQL. Not sure when, but it sounds recent (and, I suspect, more than once). It’s not surprising that Oracle would make this move, though it surprises me that it wasn’t IBM (which is not to say that they haven’t tried, too - I haven’t asked Marten that) - IBM has a clear strategy of using open source as a “low-end” alternative to its high-end products.

What is most impressive in all this (and just one reason that I think Marten is one of the top CEOs anywhere, and certainly in open source business) is Marten’s response to Stephen’s question as to why …

hannahadams and I were laying awake tonight being kept awake by the naughty puppy. We talked a bit about database vendors, and she asked me "so, who is behind Oracle?" I told her that some people call him Darth Ellison. She grunted and said that it sounds to her as if he was not played with enough as a young boy, and that his insatiable appetite for consuming information-related companies indicates that he just needs some hugs.

She was much more eloquent than I, of course :)

These days, everybody's talking about Oracle's attempts to buy MySQL and their previous purchases of Innobase and Sleepycat.

As I already mentioned earlier, I hope that Oracle will never gain influence on how MySQL evolves. MySQL is on its way to become a high end database system and so might - at least in some business areas - be a serious competitor of Oracle. What really turns my stomach upside down is the thought that MySQL could (in some people's minds, hopefully never in reality) become a lower-end alternative of something. MySQL should make it's way independently and never let any proprietary competitor gain any influence in any way.

However, what I would appreciate very much would be more co-operation among the Open Source database producers. A while ago, people from the major Open Source database …

I just stumbled over this little helper (written by Christopher Brown-Floyd), which allows you to search the MySQL manual by entering a search term in the web search bar. Neat!

I just stumbled over this little helper (written by Christopher Brown-Floyd), which allows you to search the MySQL manual by entering a search term in the web search bar. Neat!

Matt Asay must be one tired camper!  I don't know how he manages to put together such a strong conference as the now twice-a-year OSBC gathering while holding down a regular day job at Alfresco!  While there are other conferences that target open source developers, OSBC is targeted to the business community: open source entrepreneurs, startups, innovators, investors.  Ok, he also allows lawyers and there's a smattering of end users.  But increasingly, OSBC is ground central for everyone who's anyone in the open source business.  For MySQL, it's a great way to connect with so many of our partners and also to meet with new companies who want to work with MySQL or understand how we've approached our business and what lessons we've learned along the way.  I'm always happy to "pay forward" by …

Matt Asay writes:

Marten Mickos today confirmed with Stephen Shankland @ CNET that Oracle tried to buy MySQL. Not sure when, but it sounds recent (and, I suspect, more than once). It's not surprising that Oracle would make this move, though it surprises me that it wasn't IBM (which is not to say that they haven't tried, too - I haven't asked Marten that) - IBM has a clear strategy of using open source as a "low-end" alternative to its high-end products.

What is most impressive in all this (and just one reason that I think Marten is one of the top CEOs anywhere, and certainly in open source business) is Marten's response to Stephen's question as to why not sell: