If someone did start working on the project after it was closed. The users would infringe on intellectual property and face court fees, I assume.

Forking the project would not cause any infringement.

MySQL is GPL.

There are certain parts that are covered by a proprietary EULA according to Wikipedia, but yes, it's GPL otherwise.

ok let me put it too you all in laymen terms since alot of people do not get this.

Sun own www.mysql.com this is the only place right now you can get the stock files.
linux, windows install files for MYSQL when oracle kill it or re-direct it too their website.
there will be no STOCK files to get, so that is how you kill mysql open source or not.

if you cannot obtain the files anywhere once mysql.com dies or gets re-directed
then it being gpl or open source is all well and good but if you cannot get the source files
then what is the point of open source or gpl then?

dont worry it's hosted on sourceforge.net must be since it's gpl open source?
wrong last working mysql community version the page says 2006 they opened it
and too this day they have no binary packages to download since 2006.

the end of the story is once mysql.com goes so does the source files open or not.

So you assume NOBODY has the source files on their own computers? That's a bit ridiculous if you rethink what you're saying. I'm sure there are plenty of people that download and keep the source files for new versions on their computer. Stop being paranoid. MySQL isn't going anywhere.

Oracle has owned InnoBase since 2005. You still have InnoDB tables in MySQL.

Oracle has owned BerkeleyDB since 2006. You still have BerkeleyDB tables in MySQL.

Both companies produce GPL and commercial software based on their technologies. Just like MySQL.

Two forks of MySQL are being worked on.. Drizzle which is designed to store data in the Cloud. And MariaDB which is a new table engine being developed by the original creator of MySQL, who left Sun earlier this year after the MySQL 5.1 Controversy.

Finally, it is in Oracle's best interest to win over the millions of MySQL Community users in order to open up their products to smaller customers than the current Entreprises that it caters to. This will be crucial so they can compete against Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and HP in the Data Management Market. Though we may see a change in name eventually. Oracle Community Database wouldn't be so bad.

Now MySQL Enterprise on the otherhand... It no longer serves a need in the combined portfolio in the two companies.

have you ever tried using or navigating around oracles own database ? its like the starship enterprise there is just that many options in options, in sub options, and dont get me started on all kinds of different category's inside category's

mysql is lovely neat and easy to navigate around with phpmyadmin
try doing the same with oracle xg11 free community version

all in all i doubt this buyout will even go through the shareholders are now
in court over this as they are doing their best to stop this whole anarchy from taking place.

I actually find it a wonderful tool to work with. You can toss entire applications into the database and pull them into a front end. Just a marvelous system to work with. Triple redundant failover on the server, 100% uptime, automatic server failover on the client. 10,000 users connected at once. 30,000 transactions an hour.

Of course the one application I worked on Oracle with was a GPS system with realtime patrol unit tracking in three different cities on the West Coast before Google Maps existed nor was there internet readily available over cellular network. The system was great. Provided turn by turn navigation, showed dispatchers time to target on calls and so forth.