Tag Archives: Michael “Monty” Widenius
Oracle and Monty Widenius In Disagreement About Future Of MySQL
Michael “Monty” Widenius, the creator of MySQL is not happy with Oracle’s treatment of the open source database. The European Commission is currently investigation regulatory concerns about Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, parent company of MySQL.
“Oracle claims that it would take good care of MySQL but let’s face the facts: Unlike ten years ago, when MySQL was mostly just used for the web, it has become very functional, scalable and credible. Now it’s used in many of the world’s largest companies and they use it for an increasing number of purposes. This not only scares but actually hurts Oracle every day,” stated MySQL founder Monty Widenius. “Oracle have [sic] to lower prices all the time to compete with MySQL when companies start new projects. Some companies even migrate existing projects from Oracle to MySQL to save money. Of course Oracle has a lot more features, but MySQL can already do a lot of things for which Oracle is often used and helps people save a lot of money. Over time MySQL can do to Oracle what the originally belittled Linux did to commercial Unix (roughly speaking).”
Monty added that Oracle has not promised to keep MySQL under an open license. He also said that Oracle does not promise to update patches in a timely manner for MySQL or to improve the open source database language to compete with Oracle’s own offerings. Oracle responded to Monty in the form of a press release where they insisted the proper maintenance of MySQL. Below is the full press release:
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MySQL Founder, Michael “Monty” Widenius: So Long Sun
Michael “Monty” Widenius is one of the original founders of MySQL. As you may recall, MySQL was acquired by Sun Microsystems for about $1 billion. Widenius is planning on launching a storage engine company and will be opening a restaurant. Widenius will be using MySQL for customer service purposes in his new restaraunt venture.
So why is Monty leaving now? Basically he is unhappy the way that MySQL is being handled by Sun. He believes that he can make more meaningful contributions to the open source database software outside of the company. MySQL AB was started by Mony and David Axmark around 1995. Last year MySQL 5.1 was released with some fata bugs. Monty believed it was ready to be shipped at the time and wrote a blog post about it.
One of the names that Monty called out for the MySQL problems is Mårten Mickos, SVP of Sun’s database group. Mickos has served as the former CEO of MySQL AB from Jan. 2001 until the time that the company was acquired.
“Sun and I concluded in the end that I have much higher chances of achieving my goals outside of Sun, so it’s just better to swallow the bitter apple, go out and get things going. We parted in good terms and we both expect to continue to do business and work together,” wrote Monty on his blog. “I would have like to see the server development to be moved to a true open development environment that would encourage outside participation and without any need of differentiation on the source code. Sun has been considering opening up the server development, but the pace has been too slow.”