I recently received some e-mail requesting that I sign some petition meant to dissuade Oracle’s attempt at buying-out Sun (which would lead to MySQL apparently becoming closed-source).
Also assuming I’m a bit late to this game here, is this true and how likely is this to occur? What gives with all this? Am I just in dire need of sleep since it’s 4:30 in the morning or did I really read that right?
everything you have read is true, except the part about mysql becoming closed source
google news is your friend
What could happen is that MySQL kinda gets split into two branches, one open source based on the whatever version was the the last open source version at the time and the other branch closed source, maintained by whoever buys MySQL.
Okay, so what you’re saying is that there’s basically nothing to worry about…?
The current open source version would continue to exist as open source and would be able to be developed further as open source regardless of what closed source version might be created from it.
So yes there’s nothing to worry about.
Thank gawd someone answered… Looks like I can finally close PHPMyAdmin…
From what I heard in a technology podcast earlier, it seems Oracle are currently considering some kind of “preservation order” on mySQL to ensure it will continue as an open source project in development by either them or a separate body, they don’t seem to have much interest in mySQL as an entry level product to their own enterprise database format (as it stands), much of their efforts seem to be firing down on doing something with Java. 
Its really the creator of MySql whining, even though they long-ago sold out to Sun. Nothing to see here, move along. These aren’t the droids you are looking for.