Just heard the news that Oracle has bought Sun. On the surface doesn't really seem like much. One big iconic Silicon Valley company buying another big iconic Silicon Valley company. Oracle does databases, Sun is known for hardware. Larry Ellison came out to say that the main jewel in Sun was Java describing it as "...the single most important software asset we have ever acquired." Though I don't doubt this, let's not forget that Sun also owns a small open source database property known as MySQL. A small database property that a lot of start-ups are built on (including Centrro). A small database property that is by and large, free to use. I shudder to think of the ramifications should someone start charging for this product...
Though I doubt Oracle would force current or future users of MySQL to pay licensing fees, I'm also concerned that they probably won't devote as much resources to the future development of the platform or *gulp* decide to hobble it to force people down the Oracle Database path. Time will tell but if past history is any indicator, I probably should start thinking of an alternative database solution, just in case.