Python might be easier, since Google has a big influence over Python, though just that might also make it harder, since it could then just look like Google abusing its cooperate power rather than the community fighting back with a statement.
Hi guys. While I have nothing against Postgres and SQLite, there is no need to throw out MySQL to protest against Oracle. There are already 2 forks with stable releases out there: MariaDB and Percona Server. MariaDB is already making its way into Linux distros too.
Even if you wanted to completely exclude MySQL support from your project, you can still include one of the forks instead. This way you wont hurt any of your users but would be sending a powerful message, especially if many projects do the same thing together. (If you want to be pedant, you can actually identify MariaDB from the version string and make your software refuse to work with MySQL while still supporting a fork.)
I don't know if a fork of BerkeleyDB and other projects exist though, for MySQL we never trusted Oracle anyway so we are well prepared :-)
Other than that, your thinking is absolutely correct. For Oracle, and also all other large corporations that are sitting on software patents too, the only thing that matters is the money. In the community the weapon we have is us, the people and developers. If leading open source developers and projects stop supporting Oracle products, that will have an effect. In particular the Linux distributions have a lot of power. Imagine if an Oracle product is replaced by a fork in Debian... Ubuntu... Fedora... Suse... it's like disappearing from the face of the earth.
Disclosure: I work on MariaDB. It's not really appropriate for me to call for a protest on MySQL, I just wanted to highlight how to do it and not to do it if you're up for it.
PostgreSQL with its one collation per database? Oh no, this is a poor joke.
Maybe starting using software from these guys is a good start...
http://www.percona.com/software/
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/
These guys seem to be pretty serious about what they do.
Don't forget about Drizzle as a MySQL alternative as well. Although it was started by a bunch of guys that were all on Sun's payroll I think they left when the merger happpened.
I've been thinking, as someone who is forced to deal with Oracle's ERP software, you could write a pretty good ERP system for smal to medium businesses using PHP.
Perhaps the key here is not a sustained boycott type of effort targeting their bottom line... perhaps a successful "statement" of many projects near-simultaneously releasing Oracle-less versions would garner enough _news_ to make the _statement_ itself significant.
A resignation of a key official due to a policy disagreement isn't designed to make a pragmatic difference in and of itself... it's designed to be a statement that gets heard and makes others think. Maybe the wording around an Oracle-gutting from a software release could use the term "resign", e.g. "we are _resigning_ our Oracle interoperability in response to their patent litigation".
Yes, I am hoping that only a single well concerted statement would be necessary. To give it more weight I think it shouldn't just be words though, which is what brought me to the idea of dropping Oracle product support from the next release.
I should clarify a two things here:
