And after all the kerfuffle following Oracle’s purchase of Sun and MySQL, advances in the open source database sector are welcome.

With a nice price (starting at $3,995 per year), and “rid yourself of Oracle,” marketing push, EnterpriseDB may be attractive to many shops looking for a compatible database. But Oracle isn’t the only target. The xDB Replication Server can pull data from Microsoft SQL servers as well.

Have you been affected by the dropped Itanium support? Have you used Postgres? Does EnterpriseDB have a chance (they’ve hit 1,000 customers, but will there be more)?

The “donation” of the code to ASF was met coolly by The Document Foundation (TDF), the organization of developers that spun off LibreOffice in September 2010 from OpenOffice in response to Oracle’s handling of the project, including the decision to charge for the previously free Open Document Format plugin that allowed interoperability between OpenOffice and Microsoft Office suite. TDF lists its supporters, which include most of the big names in Linux: Red Hat, Canonical, Novell, Google and more.

TDF issued a statement, explaining that this move was not all they had hoped for:

The Document Foundation would welcome the reuniting of the OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice projects into a single community of equals in the wake of the departure of Oracle. The step Oracle has taken today was no doubt taken in good faith, but does not appear to directly achieve this goal. The Apache community, which we respect enormously, has very different expectations and norms – licensing, membership and more – to the existing OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice projects. We regret the missed opportunity but are committed to working with all active community members to devise the best possible future for LibreOffice and OpenOffice.org.

This move by Oracle doesn’t seem to be as “open” claim in its press materials on the matter, and TDF’s grumblings won’t go unnoticed by the open source community. One of the key hang-ups is the change of software licensing under Apache. Previously, OpenOffice code was licensed under the GPL, LGPLv3 and MPL. Under Apache’s license, modifications to the code do not need to be given back, which contrasts with the previous licensing versions.

Notably, IBM is supporting the move, and Bob Sutor has issued his own analysis and reaction on his blog.

More on OpenOffice and ASF
Oracle watchers speculate on future of OpenOffice

ASF Incubator: What does that mean?

Just as the software giant–which built its fortune on pricey (dare I say proprietary?) databases–starts to deep-six OSS fan-favorite OpenSolaris, it also sued Google over  how it implemented Java in Android. That move was immediately blasted as interference with an open source icon.

Oracle’s timing was funky and it didn’t help that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison seems to relish playing Snidely Whiplash to some other vendor’s Nell. Remember him laughing off rumors that Oracle would buy Red Hat? Why do that, he asked, when we can download the software for free? Which, as The 451 analyst Jay Lyman points out, is pretty much what Oracle did with Oracle Unbreakable Linux.

But Google is hardly a paragon of open sourciness. For all its open-source projects–Chrome, Android et al.–Google’s core search business is still a big, super-secret black box.  Sure, it runs on Linux, but how much of that work filters back to “the community?”

So Google has been able to play the victim–something it can rarely do nowadays. And Oracle has not communicated very well that it is Google’s specific use of Java that it is targeting, not the community at large, said Lyman.  “Google is aware of and stands to gain from this positioning…to say that ‘hey, look, Oracle is attacking open source, when in reality, Oracle is squarely attacking Google,” he added. (Lyman has been following the shifting good guys/bad guys of OSS for some time.

The OSS community’s anxiety around Oracle’s treatment of the MySQL franchise comes into play here as well, although Lyman noted that Oracle has worked to expand and improve MySQL.

Michael Cizmar, president of MC+A, a Chicago VAR that works with the Google appliance, agreed that Google plays both sides of the OSS fence.

“They’ve contributed heavily to things like the Chrome project, which they initiated, and Android is an open source project…but they only contribute around things that are not core [to their main business],” he noted.

Thus, there is a feeling that Google has reaped more from open source, particularly Linux, than it has sewn. Still, Lyman and others point out that the fact that Google runs on Linux greatly enhances Linux’ standing among enterprise users. 

Ironically, Oracle also still leads with Linux in many cases. Its Exadata data center appliances run Linux–not OpenSolaris, not Solaris. So, in one key respect–proving that Linux is ready for prime-time, mission-critical applications like databases–Oracle and Google are in violent agreement.

Let us know what you think about this post; email Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director at bdarrow@techtarget.com, or follow us on on Twitter.

A May 5 story on SearchEnterpriseLinux.com about the decline of Sun Microsystems and its recent purchase by Oracle Corp. drew some thoughtful, diverse views from readers. The article concluded that Linux didn’t cause Sun’s downfall, fiscally speaking, but provided a low-cost x86-based OS that offered companies a cheaper hardware/software alternative, indirectly undermining Sun’s overall business.

David Marsh, an IT architect with a custom chip company, said his firm is planning to replace its outdated Solaris systems with cheaper, more powerful x86-based hardware, a decision that has nothing to do with the pending Oracle/Sun merger. Marsh expects to migrate its Oracle e-Business suite from Solaris to Linux at the next upgrade, probably virtualizing some portions of the application, and potentially all of it, on VMware.

Marsh’s firm also uses Sun Solaris instead of Windows to run Citrix XenApp, which functions as the front-end for its designers, who use many Linux-based tools. Marsh would prefer to migrate them from Solaris to Linux because the licensing for the Windows version of XenApp is “triple” the cost on Solaris. However, a Citrix spokeswoman said Citrix currently has “no plans” to add a XenApp version for the Linux platform.

Marsh was dismayed with Citrix’ response and predicted that “quite a few high-end customers will switch to other products,” like X-Windows display software for Windows or free, open source Xming software.

But Rich Rutkowski, whose small firm makes point-of-sale systems for retail outlets, hopes that Oracle will leverage Solaris and Java at Linux’s expense. Rutkowski’s firm was using Linux for development but was disappointed with Red Hat and Novell’s SUSE open source OSes. Red Hat doesn’t support Sun’s application server directly but, instead, refers users to Sun forums, he complained. And SUSE has a complex install process for nVidia drivers and, worse, a SUSE desktop upgrade caused a kernel panic, he said.

“After experimenting with OpenSolaris and the full production Solaris, we realized that everything we added to Linux (Postgres, Java Application Server and Java) came packaged with a full install of Solaris,” Rutkowski said. “Buying from Sun makes sense and the costs were actually cheaper. We will stay with Sun hardware and software and observe Oracle’s actions. There is no reason to go to Linux if Oracle keeps Solaris open.”

Oracle’s $7.4 billion purchase of Sun Microsystems is expected to be finalized this summer.

The news was the first thing I noticed when I logged onto Twitter, and I saw that SearchDataCenter.com was working on the story. I “retweeted” Executive Editor Matt Stansberry’s play for feedback and heard back from Tom Howard, who said “IBM missed its chance. I want to know what Oracle’s commitment to Open Office and Solaris are, personally.”

But the bigger fear was from the MySQL folks. Satoshi Nagayasu, an open source database engineer from Tokyo, Japan, asked “Should we say goodbye to MySQL?” He then pointed to a blog from 2005 that was a reaction to Oracle’s purchase of Innobase, and said “Josh’s article gave me some insights why we use community-based open source [PostgreSQL].”

One of the more fun and mood-illustrating reactions was from tartansolutions: “Oracle now owns MySQL?! In related news, the Rebel Alliance has been acquired by Darth Vader for three wookies and a tantan “

John Engates, CTO at Rackspace, said “Seems like there’s a lot of concern about Oracle screwing up MySQL. People may look to PostgreSQL as a ‘safe’ open source DB.” He linked to a blog post by Om Malik, providing the GigaOM perspective on the purchase. Of the things Om said, the central point in the concern could be summarized by this paragraph:

At this price, it looks like Oracle found itself yet another bargain and in one fell swoop became a worthy competitor to IBM. It allows Oracle to become a player in the cloud computing business. More importantly, the company ends up acquiring MySQL, the upstart database that has been viewed as Oracle’s Achilles’ heel. In one fell swoop, it has taken out its No. 1 competitor.

Not all in the open source community was doom and gloom though. Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, in his blog post in reaction to the deal looked for a silver lining. Zemlin pointed out that Oracle is strategically aligned with Linux in its position as a Linux distributor, and all its products are developed and run on Linux.

“Oracle is a key supporter of open standards such as ODF and we believe this only strengthens that stance,” said Zemlin. “This acquisition could prove fruitful for Open Office and ODF support in the enterprise.”

I was on the phone for the Canonical Ubuntu 9.04 release press conference, and one of the participants asked Canonical CEO, Mark Shuttleworth, what his reaction was, specifically regarding Java support.

“It is far too early to tell,” said Shuttleworth. “Java has been open, it tends to be a one-way trip – once you’ve made that commitment it makes sense to have it as highly available as possible.”

Shuttleworth also saw the move as a bit of further evidence of the worth of open source in the enterprise software industry.

“This really cements that free software and open source is the driving force today,” he said. “All of the major forces today are either free software or powered by free software — Java, Google, and onward. The software marketplace is consolidating at an extraordinary pace. Part of the reason for that is that open source is dominating the innovation pipeline. The fact that one of those five has just announced a $7 billion acquisition of a company that describes itself as the world’s biggest free and opens source software company proves that open source is the big game in town.”

Lastly, analyst Dana Gardener painted what I feel is the most level-headed picture of what the whole deal means.

Suffice to say that whatever momentum Sun had behind open source everywhere will be muted to open source some times as a ramp to other Oracle stuff, or to grow the community and keep developers happy. If nothing else, Oracle has been pragmatic on open source, not religious.

What do you think this means for open source? Are you considering moving to PostgreSQL if you weren’t already? Are you a programmer worried about Java support? Share your thoughts in the comments

More analysis from TechTarget:
Oracle-Sun combo: What does it mean for enterprise Java?

Will Sun help Oracle eclipse IBM?

VARs turn wary eye on Sun-Oracle combo

Oracle-Sun: A threat to VMware?