More open source departures from Sun

David Axmark, co-founder of MySQL, has left Sun, which acquired MySQL last year for $1 billion. Axmark's departure comes close on the heels of Monty Widenius' exit, and comes in the midst of a bad week for Sun, when its Linux distribution lead Barton George also quit Sun to join Lombardi Software.

The open-source exodus from Sun sounds similar to the significant JBoss executive departures from Red Hat post-acquisition, except for one key point: at JBoss it was the business folks (primarily) that left, whereas Sun is losing MySQL's engineering executives.

Even so, let's be clear: it was always going to be hard to retain the free-spirited Widenius and Axmark. Indeed, Axmark noted in his resignation:

I have thought about my role at Sun and decided that I am better off in smaller organisations. I HATE all the rules that I need to follow, and I also HATE breaking them. It would be far better for me to "retire" from employment and work with MySQL and Sun on a less formal basis.

I can sympathize. I've worked at two large organizations and found the bureaucracy stifling at both. Some people thrive in big companies. Others don't.

Axmark's departure from Sun is not the end for Sun's open-source business. However, Sun does need to focus on building the MySQL talent internal to Sun so that it can continue to strengthen this leading open-source database.

That said, I will be much more concerned for the health of MySQL within Sun if we hear of Marten Mickos or Zack Urlocker leaving. I know both of them and haven't heard rumblings of discontent from either one, but longer term anything is possible. It will be a credit to Sun and a testament to its long-term vitality if it can keep astute business thinkers like these guys on board. MySQL already built a fantastic database: it was just on the cusp of thinking through how to seriously monetize it.

For Widenius, Axmark, Arjen Lentz, and others that have left MySQL/Sun, I continue to wish them happiness. I hope you will "rejoin" the open-source business community soon.

[datacharmer]

FYI, Monty Widenius has not left Sun.

You are referring to a rumor that was spread more than one month ago. It's still a rumor. and it's an old one.

Giuseppe

[xaprb]

Matt, as I have posted on an older article of yours, it is not a fact that Monty has left MySQL. It is a rumor from Valley Wag. Why do you keep saying he has left?

[Cargill_Biff]

I have been increasingly getting the impression that MySQL is foundering a little. Some big names have left, as you stated, but thats not the only problem. Some of the big brains seem to have drifted off to other projects, like Drizzle, or to writing yet another transactional storage engine (Maria) when the current transactional storage engine (Falcon) has yet to be released. There is nothing wrong with having multiple projects on the go, but with 5.1 languishing and long overdue, I would have thought all efforts would have gone towards getting it out the door, rather than stripping even more resources away to work on (what seem to me to be) pet projects. At this rate, will there ever be a version 6?
I don't know that this is true, but it seems like the focus of the MySQL development team has been scattered and the MySQL database server is losing its importance to Sun, at least from an engineering standpoint.
Am I the only one who thinks this?

[billburke]

They must not have given their engineering folks any meaningful retention. I know I would have left Red Hat without a package. It gave me enough incentive to stick around until I came to the realization that I love what I do.

[ZUrlocker]

In most silicon valley acquisitions I think it would be news if the founders *didn't* leave. David is a good guy and helped contribute a lot to the open source philosophy and GPL licensing approach at MySQL. But he's not been a part of engineering for many years. And yes, Marten and I are happy doing what we're doing. And the good news is Sun is giving us the ability to apply some of our best practices in open source business and high volume marketing across other areas of the company. MySQL is also benefiting from more engineering resources, performance tuning experts etc.

MySQL 5.1 is overdue, but I believe that by giving it a bit more bake time we fixed a few bugs that were discovered late in the game and improved the performance. So the quality is very good. We've had it in production for over a year and many customers have done likewise. But download 5.1.28 RC and see for yourself.

--Zack