Re: IBM to start selling MySQL products

[rob@xxxxxxxxx]

Do people really think that developers embrace MySQL because it is open 
source and is therefore easy to write programs that interface with it? How 
many of these developers actually modify the open source code and resubmit 
it to the open source committee?  Or are these developers gobbling down 
MySQL because it's free?  We contracted with one developer to develop an 
application to talk, via Java, to SQL server.  He originally developed it 
on MySQL.  Was that because he could customize MySQL, or because MySQL is 
free?
I am also sure that once MySQL has reached a certain level of saturation 
that, at it's price, it became the defacto standard for numerous 
applications.  Does anything that MySQL would be as popular as it is if, 
although still open source, you had to pay a license for each 
installation.  Gee, you'd still be able to customize it to your hearts 
content (like that really happens that often).

Rob Berendt