Sun buys MySQL

This is all over the tech news.  Here's a link to one of the plethora of stories about the transaction.

This is a pretty big deal to the tech industry, so it's been widely covered.  I think it will be a good thing, and I think most of the angles have been discussed elsewhere already, but there are two implications of this sale that I haven't heard anything about yet, and I'll touch on each briefly.

1) What does this mean for Oracle? 
Each of the major databases has it's paired language.  Maybe it's not official, but if you use the language the odds are pretty good (though definitely not certain) you're using the matching database as well.  For example, if you're using anything .Net, MS SQL Server is probably your database of choice.  If you use PHP it's a good bet you prefer MySQL.  In the past, Java was Oracle's language.  Most of the Oracle development samples are in Java, and Oracle seems geared to appeal to Java developers.  A large percentage of enterprise Java applications talk to Oracle. 

This changes the game a little bit.  Now Java and MySQL are under the same roof.  I would expect Java's support for MySQL to improve significantly, made possible in part by changes to MySQL to specifically make it more Java friendly.  It's just natural.  If I were Sun one of the first things I'd do is build a package that makes it exceptionally easy to install the Java runtime, MySQL, and some good GUI management tools onto a Windows server, and then use that server as deployment point for the Java runtime on the local network.

Of course, Oracle isn't just going to disappear any time soon, and the Java developers aren't going to convert overnight en mass.  In fact, Oracle today also bought BEA Systems, in a deal worth 8 1/2 times as much as the MySQL deal (the MySQL deal, though, is a lot more interesting).  But this does have the potential to diminish Oracle's prospects in the long term.  They'll still make money, but maybe not quite as much as they would have.  And look for Oracle to do something in the language space to help themselves have a natural language partner again.

2) What about Monopolies?
Whenever two large companies merge this always comes up.  This time it's had a bit of a pass.  Neither Sun nor MySQL by themselves were big enough to merit such attention, as an open source product there's no way to count MySQL installations and therefore no way to prove market share, and the two businesses are such that this is a no-brainer that there isn't a problem. 

All those circumstances change once the merger is completed.  We end up with a landscape in which there are two big open source players in Sun and RedHat.  Neither of these companies is an any danger of becoming a monopoly by itself.  Between Microsoft, IBM, Apple, and Google there's just too much competition for their offerings.  But what if at some point Sun wanted to buy RedHat?  Or vice versa?  Would the feds try to block the merger to avoid forming a monopoly in the Open Source market?

I think that scenario is very unlikely; but it is possible even if remotely, and it's worth mentioning because of some of the issues it raises.  For example, how can you be a monopoly if the code for your products is freely available for anyone to sell and compete against you?  Often a requirement for mergers of large companies is that a company make certain changes to it's product, to make it harder for it to abuse a potential monopoly.  How can you require such a change of a company when the company is dependent on volunteers to implement them?  If an open source company grows to the point where it's featured project edges out competition almost completely, could this company be held responsible even though they are neither the creator nor owner of the program in question?

There are more questions, some harder to answer than others.  For example, you certainly can get into monopoly trouble if your freely available product drives out competition and you have another complimentary non-free product.  It's called predatory pricing.

The Hook
Let's bring these together.  What if Oracle bought Sun?  That would shore up Oracle's language gap and eliminate a competitor in one go.  In fact, Oracle has already tried to buy MySQL in the past.  Oracle is certainly big enough to do it, and Sun's may find themselves vulnerable at some point not too far in the future, assuming they'd even fight it.  Oracle has been responsible for a lot of developers using Sun products, and both Sun and Oracle have a deep dislike for Microsoft that makes them natural allies.  But that might raise some real anti-trust issues, with the potential demise of MySQL at stake.