[softwarecreator]

Oracle moving fom a premium software vendor into a shareware style company is far from a positive move for them, or the industry

Why?  Seems like a smart way to introduce your product to a larger audience.  The "Oracle" lite will not be powerful enough for a company to run their applications with and when they outgrow it they'll move into the more powerful version.

This is kind of like giving the users a "test-Drive".  I don't know if they still do, but Microsoft used to give a one-licensed version of SQLServer away a few years ago.  I never used it so I don't know what it's limitations were, but I remember seeing a free version available.

[Golden Eagle]

Bottom line is the market for saleable database software has shrunk, else Oracle would be selling their low end database on the Oracle name alone instead of giving it away at no charge. While this may be great for those that want all their software for free, it's not a good sight for those that prefer to make a profit, or even a living off it. Small customization jobs are going to be all that's left for programmers, as the freeware mob slowly destroys the current titans of the industry.