WSJ writes about how databases are next in line to be commoditised by open-source software. MySQL is to what Oracle what Linux is to Windows. A quote by Kevin Harvey gives the wider perspective: “The software business is being commoditized in a lot of ways. Areas that are ripe for change have three characteristics, all of which apply to database systems: They are in widespread use, the industry has settled on common standards, and new features are less important than price and performance. Like Linux, MySQL will first be used in new, Web-based applications and then be pulled by customers into more traditional corporate-computing functions. It erodes from the bottom up.”
MySQL+T