{"id":282,"date":"2008-01-16T19:12:47","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T00:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitstep.net\/blog\/2008\/01\/16\/sun-acquires-mysql-for-1-billion-usd\/"},"modified":"2008-01-16T19:23:16","modified_gmt":"2008-01-17T00:23:16","slug":"sun-acquires-mysql-for-1-billion-usd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/blog\/2008\/01\/16\/sun-acquires-mysql-for-1-billion-usd\/","title":{"rendered":"Sun acquires MySQL for $1 billion USD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There was some unexpected news this morning when <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.mysql.com\/kaj\/2008\/01\/16\/sun-acquires-mysql\/\">Sun announced plans<\/a> to acquire MySQL. (Offhand remark: What is up with that handshake?!?)  Though rumours of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techcrunch.com\/2007\/10\/26\/mysql-ipo-chatter-picking-up-again\/\">MySQL IPO<\/a> had surfaced and re-surfaced throughout last year, this was quite a shock to me, and apparently many others.  The price &#8211; $1 billion USD &#8211; had no small part in this surprise.  Indeed, when you consider that their main software product is open source, some may question the valuation.<\/p>\n<h3>Software is only a piece of the puzzle<\/h3>\n<p>While MySQL is indeed open-source &#8211; licensed under the GPL &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/MySQL_AB\">MySQL AB<\/a>, the company in control of the project, sells services and support relating to their flagship product.  Furthermore, the software is dual-licensed (as are many projects, such as the JavaScript library, <a href=\"http:\/\/jquery.com\">jQuery<\/a>), allowing the company to sell the product to clients that may not want the provisions of the GPL to be imposed upon their usage of the software.<\/p>\n<p>With the traditional model of software, customers and clients pay for the software or a license to use it.  In these newer models, almost all based around open-source, it is the value-added service and support that are at the heart of the business model.  Note that MySQL AB is not the only company to do this; <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Red_Hat\">Red Hat<\/a> has been around for years and they are certainly profitable.  With the success of open-source software, I have to believe that this, at least in part, is the future of software development.<\/p>\n<h3>A great learning tool<\/h3>\n<p>Open-source software also highlights another point &#8211; the value it brings by easing learning.  I remember when I was back in high school and starting to get into <acronym class=\"uttInitialism\" title=\"PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor\">PHP<\/acronym> and other web technologies.  Naturally, with <acronym class=\"uttInitialism\" title=\"PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor\">PHP<\/acronym> came MySQL (back then at version 3.23), and it was the availability of this quality, open-source and easy-to-setup DBMS that prompted me to learn SQL.  In my first real software project, creating the Cool Case Gallery for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.virtual-hideout.net\">Virtual-Hideout<\/a>, I used both of these languages, which have since become valuable assets for me.  Kudos to MySQL and the open-source community for providing such great tools.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There was some unexpected news this morning when Sun announced plans to acquire MySQL. (Offhand remark: What is up with that handshake?!?) Though rumours of a MySQL IPO had surfaced and re-surfaced throughout last year, this was quite a shock to me, and apparently many others. The price &#8211; $1 billion USD &#8211; had no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[199,197,198,7,196],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitstep.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}