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:

MySQL founders David Axmark and Michael Widenius have made a major seed investment in Mobile Sorcery.  The funding was over 1.5 million Swedish Kronor ($210,000).

MySQL was bought out for about $1 billion by Sun Microsystems in January 2008.  Before the acquisition, MySQL raised about $39 million in VC money.  So it was expected that Axmark and Widenius made enough money to make major investments in startups.  MySQL will eventually become a property of Oracle Corporation, who made an offer to buy out Sun for $7.4 billion.

This investment was Mobile Sorcery’s second round of seed investment.  The company raised money from STING (Stockholm Innovation and Growth) Capital private equity.  Mobile Sorcery started in late 2004 and makes cross-platform technology for mobile applications.

One of Mobile Sorcery’s core products is called MoSync 2.0 which allows developers to convert C/C++ code to Java, Symbian, and other Windows Mobile platforms.

After IBM recently backed out of making a deal with Sun, Oracle stepped up to the plate and bought out the Java-making company for an astonishing $7.4 billion.  IBM’s offer was about $6.5 billion.

This will give Oracle the opportunity to become even more competitive against IT firms such as Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SAP, etc.  Sun also holds the assets to two of the most impressive pieces of software Java and MySQL.

Sun Microsystems bought MySQL for $1 billion in January 2008.

“To me, this proposed acquisition totally redefines the industry,” wrote Sun President and CEO Jonathan I. Schwartz in an e-mail to Sun employees.  “Let me assure you [Oracle is] single minded in [its] focus on the one asset that doesn’t appear in our financial statements: our people.”

Oracle will be paying $9.50 per share for common stock in Sun, but the agreement is subject to the Justice Department’s approval.   Sun was founded by Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Scott McNealy. Oracle was co-founded by Lawrence (Larry) Ellison.

“Java is the single most important software we’ve ever acquired,” stated Ellison in a conference call. “With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle is now able to make all of the pieces of the technology stack fit together and work well.”

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.”

Michael Widenius is one of the authors of the original version of MySQL. Widenius is also a co-founder in MySQL AB, the company that owns MySQL. In 1995, Widenius worked with David Axmark to create the original MySQL and released a book seven years later called MySQL Reference Manual. Widenius was the CTO of MySQL AB until Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) acquired them this past January.

Valleywag has reported that Widenius has put in his resignation at Sun yesterday. Although it is not known who will be Widenius’ replacement at Sun, there is speculation that it will be Brian Aker. Aker is another MySQL developer who is working on a lighter version of the web database software called Drizzle.

Aker also helped rewrite the database back-end behind Slashdot by converting it to Oracle. Aker has previously worked on Memcached storage, Blackhole storage, CSV storage, and WebMethods storage.

Image credit: Wikipedia

Brian “Krow” Aker chatted with Rackspace’s CTO a few months ago about memcached and Gearman.  Memcached is a distributed memory caching system that many large social networks use to handle all of their constant traffic.  Gearman is when a server calls out other faster servers to perform functions that they are better suited for.  Rackspace’s CTO asked Aker if he had ever though of creating more of a slim version of MySQL to work with Rackspace servers.  This question turned into a project called Drizzle.

Drizzle will have several components of MySQL stripped from it’s functionality including Stored Procedures, Views, Query Cache, Triggers, Prepared Statements, etc.  Drizzle opens up the development of MySQL to the open source community and now it won’t take years to have patches created.

Drizzle developers are constanty refactoring servers which will make the database system faster and more stable.  Drizzle won’t replace MySQL databases, but will enhance the experience.  Although the new database doesn’t have a timeline, the stable version of Drizzle is expected to release in 3-4 months.

Aker stated that this new open source project wouldn’t be possible without the Sun’s support.  Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) acquired MySQL for $1 billion, $800 in cash and $200 in stock options.

Related Links:
1. Drizzle Wiki
2. Blog of Michael Widenius, MySQL founder and original developer
3. Brian Aker’s blog
4. Drizzle on Launchpad

“Today’s acquisition reaffirms Sun’s position at the center of the global Web economy. Supporting our overall growth plan, acquiring MySQL amplifies our investments in the technologies demanded by those driving extreme growth and efficiency, from Internet media titans to the world’s largest traditional enterprises,” stated Jonathan Schwartz, CEO and President at Sun Microsystems. “MySQL’s employees and culture, along with its near ubiquity across the Web, make it an ideal fit with Sun’s open approach to network innovation. And most importantly, this announcement boosts our investments into the communities at the heart of innovation on the Internet and of enterprises that rely on technology as a competitive weapon.”

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) announced that they have reached a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL AB for $1 billion.  MySQL AB is an open source database company that many of today’s biggest websites use, Facebook and YouTube included.  All the top blogs use MySQL as well including Pulse 2.0, TechCrunch, Mashable, GigaOM, etc.  The software that Google uses to power AdWords, the company’s biggest revenue source, depends on MySQL.

Sun’s goal for MySQL is to spread it among more of an enterprise environment through Sun’s relationships with Intel, IBM, and Dell.  LAMP, the software mash-up of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl is also very commonly used to create dynamic web sites.  MySQL’s open source database software has been downloaded over 100 million times.  The software gets about 50,000 downloads per day as well.

MySQL will be integrated into Sun Microsystem’s Software, Sales, and Service organization.  Marten Miickos, CEO of MySQL will join Sun’s senior exec. leadership team as well.

“The combination of MySQL and Sun represents an enormous opportunity for users and organizations of all sizes seeking innovation, growth and choice,” stated Mickos. “Sun’s culture and business model complements MySQL’s own by sharing the same ideals that we have had since our foundation — software freedom, online innovation and community and partner participation. We are tremendously excited to work with Sun and the millions of members of the MySQL open source ecosystem to continue to deliver the best database for powering the modern Web economy.”

[Information Source: MySQL press release]