[Golden Eagle]

It's not great news for those that want to sell software, as the value of powerful products like Oracle DB's are pushed towards zero. Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are probably the last of their breed, pretty sad so early in the software sector's life.

[softwarecreator]

My point is that the free version will probably be a very lightweight version of the DB which will encourage others to try it out until their needs facilitate buying the full version.

[N3WBI3]

As someone who pays for oracle and their support, believe me when I say their value is nowhere near zero... The thought of a lightweight database on my developers desktop freeing them to write software without stepping on each others toes is also of value to me but not enough to but a copy of oracle for every one of them..

Bill Gates and Larry Ellison are probably the last of their breed, pretty sad so early in the software sector's life.

Bill Gates gives away a browser, a media player, backup software, anti virus software, and other products to sell an OS and office suite. I think its pretty much what oracle is doing now... Put something extra out there it may hurt other companies who sell that product (in oracles case MySql and in MS's Netscape, Real Audio)..

[kevkrom]

It's not great news for those that want to sell software, as the value of powerful products like Oracle DB's are pushed towards zero.

You do know that Oracle has provided free downloads of their full product versions for years now, right? The idea being that anyone can use it, play around with it, etc., but then needs to buy a license for a commercial application. This is just another step in that same direction -- a limited functionality version to get people used to the idea of using Oracle, so that the big $$$ licenses will come down the road later.