[UFO Chicago] Story Of A Death Foretold -- Oracle And Sleepycat

[Brian Sobolak]

So I don't know how many of you have seen this:

<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/13871708.htm>

Oracle has purchased Sleepycat, and is considering buying JBoss and Zend
(the company behind some PHP products).  While I figure the GPL will
ultimately prevent Oracle from completely destroying these products, I
have a tough time imagining them being as responsive to community requests
for features as they have been in the past, not to mention a drop-off in
contributions because frankly, who wants their contributions to be used by
Oracle?

It's interesting to see things develop from geek grassroots to corporate
superstars, but I see this as a bad trend -- it's hard to get people to
give up precious free time for something someone else profits from.  In
bits and pieces, the culture of sharing is being bought.

brian

--
Brian Sobolak
http://www.planetshwoop.com/