Times of change are upon the database market. The major established database companies are being challenged by open source upstarts like MySQL and PostgreSQL. For years, Open Source Databases (OSDBs) have been quietly increasing their penetration, but until recently they have lacked the capabilities to seriously threaten proprietary databases like Oracle, IBM's DB2, and Microsoft's SQL Server.

South Africa’s nTier has completed a migration of the Water Research Commission’s Compiere ERP system from Oracle to the PostgreSQL-based EnterpriseDB. The commission made the move from the Oracle database to EnterpriseDB because the EnterpriseDB relational database was a more affordable option, nTier said in a statement today.

One way for open source vendors to respond is through proprietary features. News that Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) provides a MySQL 5.1 relational database in the cloud has met with a lot of interest. On the surface, this is good news for open source users and proponents.

Ingres Corporation, the leading open source database management company and pioneer of the New Economics of IT, announced today the availability of Ingres Database 10, the latest version of the company's flagship open source database product.

Oracle's pending acquisition of Sun has hit a snag. The European Commission is concerned that Oracle's will terminate the open source MySQL project, a move that would have a detrimental impact on competition in the database market. In light of the resilience inherent in open source software, it's unclear if such a maneuver would even be possible.

Oracle, maker of one of the largest proprietary database solutions, recently purchased Sun, who makes MySQL, a piece of open-source database software. Naturally, this sounds like trouble. One of the biggest database companies buys another of the largest?

Almost the entire public sector, 96 percent, is using open source, says a French market survey. The most used applications are database management systems and content management systems.

Oracle claims that the European Commission's public policy against Oracle's takeover of MySQL runs counter to open source freedom and the growing database market.

We are writing to express our opposition to the proposed acquisition of MySQL as part of the larger merger between Sun Microsystems and Oracle Corporation.
Oracle seeks to acquire MySQL to prevent further erosion of its share of the market for database software licenses and services, and to protect the high prices now charged for its proprietary database software licenses and services.