@Absolute Cynic

I second your suggestion to check out Firebird. I've evaluated it for several projects and found it to be very feature rich - I only ended up plumping for PostgreSQL out of familiarity. As for MySQL, having had it corrupt my data due to misfeatures and bugs (with the InnoDB backend that's supposed to be a real relational database, unlike MyISAM) I'm reluctant to use it again.

As for Monty leaving Sun - if he really has - it's probably no great loss. MySQL has been technically deficient since its inception and the head honchos at MySQL AB did everyone a disservice when they tried to claim that features like referential integrity were unnecessary. I still find myself interviewing developers who believe constraints should be enforced solely at the application level, having been fooled by what was frankly marketing in the MySQL documentation.