With Oracle's pending acquisition of Sun, who currently owns the MySQL rights and trademarks, one has to wonder what's going to become of MySQL should this go though. Oracle has it's on preparatory database software, and MySQL has for a long time held the advantage of being free to use, and very easy to implement. MySQL being owned by Oracle could be a huge issue for many people, so that's where MarinaDB comes in. Should Oracle kill off MySQL or otherwise make it inaccessible, or very much undesirable MarinaDB will be there to stand as a replacement MySQL. Best of all, MarinaDB is being handled by the original founder of MySQL!

So, I ask for your thoughts on the subject.
Is Oracle going to kill MySQL? Will the EU allow the Oracle / Sun acquisition go through? Should we be worried yet?

Dygear, I've read from several places about this, and chances are that MySQL will stay alive, and if Oracle is dumb enough to kill it, then they'll gain a shittonne of bad publicity from developers who support MySQL, and inevitably this will wear off on others.

I hate to be that guy, but: PostgreSQL. It's not like we don't have viable alternatives.

If that's not your cup of tea, MariaDB, being a fork and all, should also be a fine alternative if you're relying on MySQL-specific behaviour. I see no reason to worry, no matter what happens. Open Source baby!