] Since its founding in 1995, MySQL has managed to
] establish itself as the provider of the best-known open
] source database on the market and hopes to dent the armor
] of big name vendors such as IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft

I remain a staunch Oracle proponent, by mysql may work for "small" million row databases on the web. The biggest issue for using mysql is lack of scalability to larger iron without wholescale replication and master/slave databases. Yuck!

InfoWorld: Interview: MySQL rides open source wave into DBs: April 16, 2003: By James Niccolai: Platforms