It is necessary to point out, 3 1/2 years later, that MySQL 5.0 (which has just been released) has every single feature avaible in Oracle 10g, and then some. This includes the basics such as transactions, subselects, triggers, and stored procedures. It also includes the neato-keen features, such as clustering, replication, and multiple-indices-per-table-per-query.
MySQL has certainly grown up.
My criteria for good software:
- Does it work?
- Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?