Jaspersoft conducted a survey of its 130,000 registered users and customers to determine the perception of how MySQL and the Java programming language could be expected to fare under Oracle's stewardship. Given the importance of both technologies to the future of open source, Jaspersoft thought the survey would provide some indication of user attitudes toward open source trends in the enterprise. The results were published in the paper "The State of Enterprise Open Source Software After the Oracle Acquisition of Sun Microsystems."

It was a surprising finding in Jaspersoft's eyes to learn of the lack of awareness among its respondents that Oracle had created entirely separate engineering, professional services, sales, and marketing units to support MySQL, which is entirely apart from Oracle's traditional Oracle DBMS business. Consequently, the prospects for MySQL under Oracle were seen to be good generally, given that the rivalry once anticipated between MySQL and Oracle DBMS is now moot.

Even more of a surprise, Jaspersoft reports, was the discovery that many respondents expect a resurgence in the use of the Java programming language with Oracle. If rivalry is the issue, then it is a possible competition with IBM, which has invested heavily in Java, that found expression, should Oracle decide to leverage its position with respect to Java to the disadvantage of IBM.

The anxiety that attended Oracle's pursuit of Sun seems largely to have abated, Jaspersoft concludes. Oracle is a formidable competitor, given its solid position astride both the open source and proprietary software stacks most commonly deployed today, the report concludes. The legacy of both MySQL and the Java programming language appear to be assets Oracle intends to protect.

Blogging on Java World's Daily Brew, Josh Fruhlinger takes a somewhat less rosy view of Jaspersoft's findings, writing, "'Resurgence' certainly seems like a strong word to describe survey results that show that three-quarters of developers have no plans to increase their use of the language. As for the opinion of Oracle's treatment of the JCP, 60 percent of people think it will stay at about the same level of quality or even get worse, which is troubling considering how many people are frustrated by it."

It's all in how you view the numbers.

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Spring 2010 Release of MySQL Enterprise

Java SE 6, Update 21 [...read more...]

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