What about MySQL support now Oracle owns it?

[timgws]

Hey guys,

 

I was just wondering what the WHMCS team is thinking of doing now that MySQL is (fully) owned by Oracle. Now, it's not an immediate issue, I know, but it seems to me that it would be somewhat silly for Oracle to not move it's development focuses less on MySQL (which is somewhat a competitor to Oracle) and onto Oracle's for-pay databases.

 

It would be cool if WHMCS would put some of it's focus on moving to support databases other then MySQL, for example through the use of a database abstraction layer.

 

I would hate for WHMCS to be in the position three years down the track where it only supports either a database that you need to pay a few thousand dollars for (ie, MySQL Enterprise) or is no longer actively supported (MySQL Community Edition's possible future?)

 

I understand that Oracle is not going to kill one of the largest deployed database systems straight away, but I am a tiny bit worried about what the future may hold. I am not a fortune teller, but very soon after Oracle finished purchasing Sun, they culled the utilities to convert Oracle databases & tables off their site... does not seem like a good start

 

Thanks,

Tim

[m00]

Hello Tim,

 

I don't think that Oracle will kill the MySQL "project". There are many companies which give out a free product and a payed product. The free product for the basic users which can debug their own environment, and the paid product for enterprise solutions, which are willing to pay for service contracts and updates. See companies like VMware (ESXi/ESX), Citrix (XEN) and Novell (Suse) who also use a similar startegy.

 

As you already said; why should they kill one of the most used database engines. That just means that most people will switch to another free alternative like PostgreSQL.

 

Besides that, I agree to you that WHMCS should support more database engines , like PostgreSQL or MSSQL.

 

Just my two cents

 

- Jasper