Re: Oracle buying Sleepycat, JBoss, and

Marc,

> This is what I thought ... now, what happens if the Zend engine is pulled
> out of PHP?  Does that cripple the PHP project, or just inconvience it?
>
> For instance, I know if I don't download/install the Zend Optimizer, and
> do a 'phpinfo()', it still lists the Zend Engine itself, so its part of
> the *base* PHP build ...

Actually, some of the PHP developers a couple years ago wanted to put PHP on
Parrot and abandon the Zend Engine completely.  There was a big showdown at
PHPCon in 2003 or 2004 in which the independant developers battled it out
with Zend and lost.  I think Bruce was there, actually.

So if Oracle+Zend tried to start changing the direction of PHP I think we'd
see the direction of PHP change in short order.  This might be a good thing,
actually.

On the other hand, I am worried about PDO.  Currently I think both of the core
PDO developers are working for Oracle, which could be bad news for real
database agonosticism in the new driver.  Another reason to look at Parrot.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco