Despite those commitments, Vallee says there is still uncertainty over Oracle's feelings toward MySQL.

Oracle executive Kenneth Jacobs, who managed InnoDB, a MySQL storage engine, was popular among the MySQL community. But Jacobs resigned from Oracle after the company appointed Screven to lead the MySQL business.

"We're going to miss Ken. He was a really outstanding steward of the InnoDB technology," Vallee says. Screven "is a longstanding and very successful executive inside Oracle. What we don't know is how he feels about MySQL."

Pythian had a partnership with Sun on MySQL, but that's on hold until Oracle provides some clarity on product and sales strategy, Vallee says.

Neither Epic Advertising nor IODA pay Oracle for support, but Oracle's contributions to future versions of MySQL will affect all users. Okin would like to see Oracle add more enterprise-class capabilities, but doesn't know exactly what to expect.