Whaaat!?

Remember what I was saying about Serious Rumors? Well that one actually fell apart. Now we have a new one:
Oracle to pick up Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion after rival suitor IBM dropped bid

File this under "the lengths that Oracle will go through to kill MySQL"

For anyone who doesn't understand what I mean by that - allow me to break it down:

Databases are what are used to store information on 90%+ of web sites.

Oracle's founders invented the database for IBM and later spun off their own company. The database concept is the center of their universe. They make a lot of money on them and they charge a lot of money for them.

MOST web sites use MySQL as their database - which is for the most part - free.

So Oracle intrinsically hates MySQL as much as Microsoft intrinsically hates Linux.

Get the picture?

I have not even begun to talk about the implications for the Java platform and programming language, nor for Oracle EBS for that matter...

I am going to continue to use NetBeans in favor of JDeveloper for now, but eyes to the horizon for stormy weather ahead. I am just thankful that Java was Open-Sourced in time. Oracle certainly never would have done that. They have not done so with PL/SQL for example...