With IBM's fumbled attempt at purchasing the maker of solaris, java, and confusing/annoying naming conventions, follwed by the announcement that Sun would be going 'employee owned,' it came as some shock when the sudden, all but overnight development began circulating that Oracle would purchase Sun Microsystems, for pennies on the dollar over what IBM wanted to pay. Now, regardless of which side you are on, it seems to make a lot more sense for a number of reasons, the biggest being that Sparc servers running Solaris are far and away the most common implementation of the Oracle Database (currently in its 11i-th iteration).

Logic dictates that even though the arrangement makes more sense than IBM, and can be viewed as something other than strictly anticompetitive action, as well as Oracle's entry into the hardware market, that all the freeware database solutions that Sun has built up over the years, namely postgresql and MySql, are going to soon be little more than history. Now, most people familiar with what databases actually do, and their application in development tend to agree that MySql going is not neccessarily the end of the world, and postgresql, for all its power, desperately needed a real management utility. Whatever your viewpoint may be, the question we all must start pondering now is, if you have a current MySql or postgresql implementation, where will you go?

There are a number of options on the table, most companies who produce a database software package, also release a freeware version. Here's a quick breakdown of some of the top applications in a world without mysql.

1) SQL Express Edition

Microsoft's freeware database, with almost all the functionality inherent in the full blown version of SQL, it's a great platform to develop on. The biggest downside is, as with SQL Server, you need to be running a window's box to use it. Barring having an experienced administration staff and some nice hardware, it's not an option for most who need a lot of performance.

2) DB2

IBM's ever present offering has a free version as well. Taking a few features out that most people won't need ( i.e., you aren't running an enterprise implementation ), this is a good option. Downside to DB2 is it's a bit dated and functionally obtuse compared with most other packages on the market, and might have a bit of a learning curve for migrants.

3) Oracle, Express Edition

Yes, indeed, Oracle *does* have a freeware version of their world-class database package. Their method is different from other providers of 'express' databases in that they don't place a lot of limits on the software, they simply give you an old version (10g). 10g is a very solid version, and quite secure, but as with DB2, there's going to be some learning curves involved.

4) The Open Source Bunch

I'm not going to take the time to go through the myriad packages here, as most all of them have very marginal differences.

These are going to be your standard freeware offerings, and they jury is really out as to whether or not they're as good as MySql, none of them really touch postgres.

*Apache's Derby
*MaxDB
*Firebird
*Ingres

They're all okay, but they have significantly limited featuresets compared to the top two units, which may not be long for this world.

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Personal Note: I view this as an opportunity. The world is far too divided on technologies and methods of doing things. As much as we harp on standards and code uniformity/interoperability, we have far too many contradictory and indeed competing methods of accomplishing the very same task, many of them having long since stagnated beyond the point where fresh ideas will help.

This gives people on the open source/freeware end of things the opportunity to familiarize themselves with industry standard technologies, and truly learn what makes them good, why, and (I reiterate) LEARN from the process. It will also bring things closer, as the better understanding you have of technologies on a global level, the more likely it is that people will build things that work together, rather than compete for the ubiquitous 'marketshare' buzzword, doing everything they can to segment and drag technologies in divergent directions so that the userbases become further and further alienated and close-minded. Silver lining? I think so.