A very interesting blog post from Jonathan Schwartz this morning! Sun is acquiring MySQL AB, the company behind MySQL. Under the heading "helping dolphin's fly" Jonathan goes into some detail behind the motivation and the plan for their investment. My gut reaction is that this is a very positive move for Sun and could be very positive for MySQL.

Nearly every analysis of open source adoption I've seen, and reinforced by my own experience with rSmart, commercial support is the greatest inhibitor (or enabler) for enterprise adoption of open source software. Over the years I've come to appreciate how important it is to the open source movement for large vendors like Sun and IBM to support open source software. So I certainly appreciate Jonathan reinforcing it as a key motivating factor:

"CTO's at startups and web companies disallow the usage of products that aren't free and open source. They need and want access to source code to enable optimization and rapid problem resolution (although they're happy to pay for support if they see value). Alternatively, more traditional CIO's disallow the usage of products that aren't backed by commercial support relationships - they're more comfortable relying on vendors like Sun to manage global, mission critical infrastructure.

This puts products like MySQL in an interesting position. They're a part of every web company's infrastructure, to be sure. And though many of the more traditional companies use MySQL (from auto companies to financial institutions to banks and retailers), many have been waiting for a Fortune 500 vendor willing to step up, to provide mission critical global support."

In the past 10 years I've really lost track of Sun's direction. Recently I've had an opportunity to see them engage around in discussions about the Sakai and Kuali projects. I'm enthusiastic about the kind of things they seem to be gearing up to do and I'm happy to see Jonathan's remarks about their commitment to education:

"... And finally, this acquisition will kickstart a new set of investments Sun will be making into the academic community. Why universities? As we continue to invest in open source software development across the world, it's apparent that nearly all roads lead to academic environments - and it's high time we (as an industry) started watering the trees at their roots. It's one thing to say you're committed to education, it's another to put your money where your mouth is."