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While the future of MySQL is unknown, I haven't had time to keep up with the known effects that Oracle has had on MySQL since it was bought from SUN.
Have there been changes of note, either by Oracle (or the MySQL community) since the deal became public?
Obligatory disclosure: I have worked for MySQL AB/Sun Microsystems & Percona (I never worked for Oracle). I'm now independent, and have no shares/remaining stake-holdings in any. I do however acknowledge that I have a stake holding in MySQL succeeding in general, as I have invested time in a specific skill-set.
It used to upset me how features were decided at MySQL... How was it decided that partitioning was a critical feature for 5.1, but backup totally missed the radar?
There seemed to be a bunch of low hanging fruit (years old bugs) that were not being addressed, and I was always cynical that unless it could check off a box on a features grid, it would never be handled.
There was a bit of talk, but no indication it was any better under Sun's management. However, now that Oracle is in control, several years old bugs are being addressed, performance has become a feature, and I actually find really compelling reasons to upgrade to 5.5 and 5.6.
I feel awkward having to defend one of the world's biggest software companies, but they're really not getting enough praise. Instead everyone is making claims they are somehow screwing the project. Most of the projects they 'screwed' made no commercial sense to them... however they make a non trivial amount of money on OEM licenses and subscriptions/professional services for MySQL.
I work for one of Oracle's competitors and I'm a big fan of what they are doing, in most ways. The server and storage engine development rocks. The one major thing I criticize is that they aren't promoting MySQL enough at conferences, trade shows, etc. There needs to be this sort of visibility or the next generation of developers won't know about it. Instead they are focusing on selling it to the enterprise market, which I think is short sighted. This leaves an opportunity for my company (Percona) to step up and take the lead, which we are trying to do. But I wish Oracle would do it, too, because they could accomplish so much more than we can.
The general answer to this is that the Oracle acquisition now puts MySQL towards the path of a database targeted for small - medium sized business rather than that of an Oracle replacement.
From the MySQL corporate side, this has actually lead to a more organized and focused development. Bugs are getting fixed, features are being added, and releases are happening, all at an improved pace over what was happening at Sun (albeit with a nod towards corporate customers, rather than community/floss users)
From a community standpoint, many people who gravitated towards MySQL as an Oracle replacement have decided to look into other options. This has lead to a number of forks, most which try to maintain some compatibility with Oracle (MariaDB/XtraDB), though one that doesn't (drizzle, which actually started before the Oracle purchase). Of course others have swapped into Postgres (the 2nd largest OSS database) and other systems. This has lead to some fissures within the MySQL community amongst companies formed by ex-MySQL employees who are now trying to find a path within the new MySQL ecosystem. All in all though, I don't think it has slowed down new adoption of community / OSS MySQL very much; there are too many incumbent players that keep it moving forward for it to go away anytime soon.
