Sun executive puts a brave face on insubordinate rant

MySQL's Michael ("Monty") Widenius cann be a bit of a loose cannon, as I've written here before and as revealed in his recent excoriation of MySQL's 5.1 release, telling would-be adopters to be "very cautious" about using it.

Sun SVP of Database Products, Marten Mickos, attempts to put a happy face on Monty's indiscretion but I imagine his private feelings involve some choice Finnish profanities with Monty's name after them. At least, that's what I'd be saying (if I spoke Finnish).

Transparency, as Mickos notes, is a hallmark virtue of open-source software and its associated communities. But there is a difference between transparency and responsible self-criticism. Monty crossed that line.

Monty doesn't work for MySQL anymore. He works for a public company and has a duty not only to his conscience but also to his shareholders, shareholders that are not well-served by his now routine destructive commentary toward his own company.

Monty publicly criticized Mickos for putting consistency of release schedule over quality. Mickos, to his credit, has sought to make peace. But with rumors swirling about Monty potentially leaving Sun, I can't help but feel that he could not possibly leave soon enough for the good of Sun and its database business.

[MSSlayer]

Another religious person putting money over morals. How unsurprising.

Screw the shareholders, if this country was rational, they would be a minor concern since they willing allow companies to die, jobs be lost, just so they can pocket money they do not need.

If he believes that the latest release is flawed, he has a moral obligation to himself and his customers to let them know. It is the right thing to do.

What is better? Lying to customers, having them pay money for something not quite right, or telling them to be cautious and getting the issues fixed?

If you think the former, well you are a businessman with no sense.

[dmourati]

I disagree with the characterization of his post as a rant. Widenius laid out the facts. They happened to be unfavourable of Sun and Mikos. Widenius must have made his case internally to delay the release until a proper QA cycle could be completed. The release went ahead despite his objections and he was forced into a bad position. I applaud his temerity and urge caution on the part of any shop implementing the new features.

[GeekNerd]

Way to go Matt. You just proved you have zero business sense. Lets see the facts here - a vendor of a core and critical piece of infrastructure releases a new version of their product. The release is well over schedule and its development cycle was rife with problems. The corporate mothership is slowly sinking into a morass and forces a release.

What will happen if customers use the buggy product in their infrastructure? Will it bring down their websites? Corrupt their databases? Lose revenue, uptime and customers? So for warning customers and probably saving the customers (and hence shareholders) - you excoriate Widenius and hold up Mickos as a hero. You think you are shilling for Sun but you are not even doing that.

I have just developed a ton of respect for Widenius while I understand that Mickos is just doing his job. Just like the people who launched the Space shuttle because they had to be on schedule even though the risks of catastrophe were high.

[memnoch_proxy]

While existing MySQL users have been anticipating the new features in 5.1, any possible regressions are nearly intolerable. I would much rather 5.1 have been as solid as possible rather than available as soon as possible. I was not impressed by how MySQL 5 seemed more fragile than 4. MySQL needs to doubly reinforce it's perception of stability and correctness. Consider how many patches Google has put out for MySQL that are not actually included, or are better than MySQLs patches. This is astonishing! If it takes a splash of cold water on Sun to get them to help MySQL increase stability, I say "splash away". Sun and MySQL don't want to lose customers, but nothing speaks louder than bugs.