Yesterday, I completed a most significant emotional step in the integration of MySQL into Sun. As about 75 % of MySQLers had already done prior to myself, I migrated my main mail account from MySQL’s mail server to Sun’s.

Yes, I am still reachable @mysql.com. And I was already earlier reachable on @Sun.COM, in addition to my private @arno.fi. But now Sun’s email server is the one I use for both sending and receiving email. So this minor administrative step raises questions for me whether my signature should primarily feature my @Sun.COM email address, or whether I should remain @mysql.com. Luckily (strangely? sadly?) Sun allows me to follow my own judgement on this one.

A reason for happiness is that I am reachable as “kaj” on both @mysql.com and @sun.com. This relieves me from the humiliation of constantly seeing a new, unfamiliar garbling of my last name. In Finland, we’re of course used to foreigners not knowing the final three letters of our alphabet, “åäö”. So I’ve been garbled to “Arno” on occasion in my adult life. Dropping the dots and rings is a more or less official misspelling custom of email addresses in Nordic countries, so while it still hurts my eyes, it’s something I’ve grown accustomed to. However, the Germans misspell differently. They garble me to “Arnoe”. While each country has its own customs, and I tell myself to be respectful of that, I still get frustrated every time my name is violated.

So please email me on a first-name basis. As firstname@mysql.com, as firstname@sun.com, or as firstname@lastname.countryofcitizenship.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 12:01 and is filed under MySQL, Sun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.