I’ve spent much of this week at the annual MySQL Conference in Santa Clara, CA.  Feels like a record crowd in both size and energy.  Obviously, many questions swirled about the fate of this beloved database and the pending acquisition of Sun by Oracle.  It remains too early for confident speculation with regards to MySQL, [...]

I believe that many of the pundits have it wrong this morning. I don’t believe that Oracle has any interest in the hardware and systems business long-term. They will be looking to line up buyers so they can spin those pieces out. When you’re addicted to the 90+% gross margins that software delivers, why would [...]

Is the real advantage of open source simply lowering the costs of buying and using complex software . . . sort of, commoditization on an enterprise scale?  Or, should open source software stand for something much more – such as innovation based on both a truly modern architecture and collaborative development methodology?  I say yes. [...]