How Long Will Oracle Stick With Open Source?

snydeq writes "The fact that Oracle has handed over the keys to two major open source projects in recent weeks has some questioning the fate of other prominent open source projects Oracle took on in the wake of its 2010 acquisition of Sun. But while OpenOffice.org and Hudson provided little commercial opportunity for Oracle, it appears that Oracle has plans to keep rein on NetBeans, MySQL, and GlassFish contrary to expectations, analysts contend."

VirtualBox?

[utkonos]

So much talk about MySQL and Ooo etc etc. Why don't I hear anything about VirtualBox? It seems to be one of the best pieces of open source VM software out there.

VirtualBox

[Toe, The]

I was surprised when I stumbled across Oracle VirtualBox [virtualbox.org]. It's pretty dang nice, at least for the end-user instance. What's in it for them to support this project?

Re:Oracle bought Sun for MySQL

[DragonWriter]

Oracle won't release MySQL. MySQL is a long-term, strategic threat to their primary product, Oracle database.

No, its not.

Now, only customer-facing services get an Oracle or Sybase license bought for them - the rest got MySQL.

You know, Oracle already has a free-for-production-use version of Oracle Database (Oracle Database XE) that has been around longer than they've owned MySQL. It may be true that low-cost (open source or not) database alternatives have reduced the number of licenses Oracle can sell, but Oracle has long ago figured out that it was better off if it was supplying the low-cost alternatives (and thus, using them as a vehicle to push upgrades to its more expensive products, or as vehicles to sell optional services) than if those were provided only by its competitors.

MySQL might eventually get cut because it doesn't have a clear distinct market role for Oracle that isn't better served (from Oracle's perspective) by the existing XE product, but its not getting cut on the basis that the existence of low-cost and/or open-source DBs are a strategic threat to Oracle Database (indeed, keeping MySQL as the most visible open-source DB probably is the best way to keep mindshare off of open-source DBs that have the potential to be a strategic threat to Oracle Database, something PostgreSQL, for instance, stands a lot bigger chance of doing than MySQL does.)