Jetlagged from transatlantic travel, I woke up in the middle of the Californian night thinking about what has changed since I arrived at the MySQL Conference in Santa Clara on Sunday evening. I was pondering all the questions MySQL users and Sun colleagues were asking at the event, and what the user base was thinking out loud on Twitter yesterday.

What has changed is obviously that Sun Microsystems and Oracle announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun.

What further changes we will see as a result of that is a different story. Evidently, I don’t sit in with a crystal ball predicting what will happen next. Nor do I have insight into Oracle’s plans for MySQL, once the deal is closed. Nor am I even in a position to comment upon the acquisition, so I won’t do it.

However, what I do know and what I can say is what has not changed with MySQL:

1. There still is a huge base of MySQL users out there. They have economic interests that are independent of whoever owns MySQL. The users in the MySQL community come in all flavors, ranging from casual users to those who intimately know the inner workings of MySQL and have contributed to the code base.
2. There still is a huge talent pool of MySQL experts in Sun Microsystems, in Support, in Consulting, in Training, in Engineering, in other parts of Sun. They have a strong loyalty towards the MySQL users they have served over many years.
3. MySQL is still licensed under the GPL. The GPL license used to form a safety net for the users not certain about whether MySQL AB would follow the spirit of Open Source. It continued to be so with Sun Microsystems. And the Open Source license continues to provide a safety net for its user base, regardless of the owner of MySQL.
4. MySQL has founders, one in particular, who still haven’t fallen off the face of the planet. Moreover, their passion for MySQL and its users continues.
5. Sun Microsystems still is a separate legal entity, practising what’s known as “business as usual“. This is familiar to MySQLers from the time between Sun’s acquisition of MySQL was announced mid-January 2008 to the closing at the end of February 2008. During the period between announcement and closing, we continue to behave as separate entities, even competing with each other.
6. Part of Business as Usual is a number of product announcements at the MySQL Conference this week. I’m looking forward to these!

While I cannot and will not personally speculate about what happens next, nor about Oracle’s intentions with MySQL, I think our users are looking to what the names most inimately associated with MySQL are saying — even if they no longer work for Sun Microsystems:

• First, Mårten Mickos, MySQL AB’s former CEO and long-time SVP at Sun, has several positive comments in his Forbes interview “Why Oracle Won’t Kill MySQL”.
• Second, Michael “Monty” Widenius, MySQL AB’s co-founder, also finds many positive things to say in his blog statement “To be (free) or not to be (free)“.

My humble suggestions: Keep using MySQL! Follow the announcements from the MySQL Conference this week! Keep helping each other within the MySQL community!

Go MySQL!

The last couple of years, I have had the pleasure of moderating panels at the MySQL Conference. Last year, it was about scaling MySQL, and the year before that, it was the Clash of the DB Egos.

For this year, the original plan was for a MySQL Roadmap Shootout. Many of these questions Karen Tegan Padir should address in her opening keynote, and Robin Schumacher and Rob Young will dig deeper in “The Future of MySQL“.

Hence, we decided to aim higher: We’re going for the clouds. This year’s new topic is “The Great Open Cloud Shootout“.

We’re starting from the simple question: What really is a Cloud? We go on to ask other questions: How do databases fit in the cloud? What are the technical benefits of and limitations to the cloud? What happened to SaaS — is it dead? And we conclude by passing on the questions the audience twitters.

Our list of panelist celebrities includes Lew Tucker (Sun’s Cloud CTO), Monty Taylor (full-time MySQL Drizzle hacker), Jeremy Zawodny (craigslist) and Chander Kant (Zmanda), and we might add another industry luminary or two to this list.

Link:

• The Great Open Cloud Shootout http://en.oreilly.com/mysql2009/public/schedule/detail/8871

Tomorrow, The Big Trek starts. Duleepa “Dups” Wijayawardhana will spend the time from then on until the MySQL Conference and Expo starts travelling by rail and bus all the way from home in Montreal to California. Hence the name “Dups on Rails”. The purpose of the Big Trek is to talk about MySQL in Canadian and US universities. He’ll also arrange MySQL Meetups and go on customer visits, as people ping him.

Towards the end of the trip, as we get closer to the User Conference, Dups won’t be alone. His alter ego Colin Charles (yes, people do mix up Dups and Colin) will join him from 13 April onwards in Northern California. And at the same time, a parallel trek is started by Giuseppe Maxia an Sheeri K. Cabral, in Southern California.

The list of universities include Queens University, University of Western Ontario, Illinois Institute of Technology, Purdue University, University of San Francisco, Cal Poly, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, Stanford University and others. 

The most frequent topic Dups will speak about is “What the MySQL is this anyway?“. However, I can assure you that his attempt is not to turn our product into a swear word.

The exact venues and times are documented in detail on http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/MySQL_Campus_Tour_2009 in Forge Wiki.

And, if you want a picture of Dups on Rails, do take a look at Dups’s own blog entry on the subject. 

BTW, I just joined Dups’s Campus Tour Facebook group and encourage those interested in meeting Dups to do the same!

Two down, one to go! Last week, I went to Gothenburg and Stockholm for the Sun Nordic Software Roadshow. This week, it’s Helsinki coming up.

These roadshows are a set of presentations and form an opportunity to interface with Sun customer and partners, and lots of MySQL users. It’s about MySQL, Glassfish, Open ESB, Open SSO and identity management.

For Gothenburg and Stockholm, the first keynoter was Ola Ahlvarsson. He’s a serial entrepreneur that survived the dot com boom and now makes a comfortable living talking common sense about Internet, and hosting the Scandinavian Interactive Media Event (SIME) each November in Stockholm, boasting big-name speakers from all the world coming to Stockholm. Ola is a great presenter and from him, I will with pride steal the best description of a digital native that I’ve heard so far. I liked it so much that I posted a blog about it, in Swedish, German and English. (The blog includes a picture of my first Nokia from 1967).

In Stockholm, I got the opportunity to visit with one of the biggest and most advanced users of MySQL in all of Europe: the Swedish Police. I blogged about their current use and future plans.

For Helsinki on Wednesday this week, one of the speakers I’m looking forward to is Petri Vuontela, in charge of IT customer systems at the bank where I’ve been a customer since I got my first bank account (now Aktia, then Helsingfors Sparbank) talking about identity management. And personally, I will be talking about “MySQL, Powering the Web Economy”, like in the venues in Sweden.

Links:

• http://se.sun.com/sunnews/events/roadshow/
• http://se.sun.com/sunnews/events/roadshow/agenda_se.html
• http://se.sun.com/sunnews/events/roadshow/agenda_fi.html
• http://www.sime.nu/
• http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/2009/03/12/do-as-the-swedish-police-save-money-on-open-source/
• http://blogs.arno.fi/fib/2009/03/16/en-digital-infoding/
• http://blogs.arno.fi/efib/2009/03/16/eine-digital-eingeborene-und-mein-erstes-nokia/
• http://blogs.arno.fi/isit/2009/03/16/a-digital-native-and-my-first-nokia/

Given the changes announced this week, I have updated my original plans for my presentation on Sunday. I was going to talk about Social networking, but am now changing it to a very interactive Q&A session.

I expect people are asking themselves

• What has changed?
• What will happen now?
• What are the consequences for the MySQL roadmap?
• Are there other consequences for the MySQL community?

and I will attempt at answering these questions interactively during FOSDEM.

Towards the end of next week, after internal coordination, I plan to share some further thinking on the “what will happen now” front with my blog readers.

What also I plan to do during tomorrow’s FOSDEM session is to get plenty of feedback on internal thoughts about what the community expects from us. My aim is to ask the right questions. My aim is to listen. My aim is to be able to use the FOSDEM feedback in our own planning at Sun. My aim is not yet to give answers to what Sun will do to accommodate your feedback, not even in the blog towards end of next week. At least partial answers can be expected at the MySQL Conference & Expo 20-23 April 2009 in California, though.

Summary: Travel to Brussels, come to FOSDEM, follow the signs for the “AW Building”, and go to the MySQL room AW1.126 in time before the start 13:15 tomorrow Sunday 8.2.2009. And tell us what you want Sun to do with MySQL!

Like a number of other Sun people, whether MySQLers or not, I will travel to Brussels next weekend, for FOSDEM ‘09, an acronym which stands for the Free and Open Source Software Developer’s European Meeting.  

If you think you’re late in registering, or if you don’t have a budget, don’t worry. Entrance is free, and registration isn’t necessary. “Just come to the campus and enjoy the conference”, the FOSDEM site stresses.

As for MySQL, we have a developers room on Sunday as follows:

I’m looking forward to taking a user perspective on social networks in my presentation at 13:15.

Do also take a look at our MySQL Forge Wiki page on FOSDEM 2009. We use it to broadcast any last minute information.

I hope to meet you in Brussels!

Open Source is global in nature. You can develop a database in, say, Finland or Sweden, and become known in, say, Ukraine or the United States.

This would imply that Open Source knows no borders.

In practice, borders hamper Open Source work a lot. I have been familiar with the hassle involving MySQLers in Russia and the Ukraine trying to get Schengen (European Union) and US visas for meetings. And I have myself gone through a lot of hassle travelling to Russia and once even (out of my own stupidity and carelessness, though) been denied entry to India when I already was on Indira Gandhi airport in New Delhi.

But now, I’ve experienced what I had expected the least:

Several Sun Microsystems Inc employees, especially related to the Database Group, have been denied short stay business visas to Australia, over the last few months, as they have been seen to be competing with local Australian businesses unfairly.

I regret to share that this will adversely affect MySQL presence at linux.conf.au in Hobart, Tasmania 19-24.1.2009.

Footnote: The illustration is from the border between Finland and Russia. When I grew up, it used to be a very closed one.

Update / clarification

I am overwhelmed by the attention this post has got! It’s been quite a ride, and a lesson in blogging. In retrospect, I should perhaps have anticipated the level of interest, and spent time fine-tuning my wording. I didn’t, so there’s a need for clarifications and an update for anyone who doesn’t want to read all the over 30 comments.

First: Personally, I am not the one to have been declined a visa to Australia. The person whose visa was affected is a close colleague, but not myself. I’ve been several times to Australia, both prior to and after joining MySQL AB, and I have never had any issues.

Second: Given my frustration at the rejection of the visa of my colleague, I chose to use the word “several” to describe two instances.

Third: The first instance, in August 2008, is referred in detail in Comment #29. Not thinking I was providing a scoop for The Register, Heise Online and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, I didn’t even look up that chat log until replying to the commenters on the blog. And in that first instance, the person in question (”kv”) had already got a visa. He was not denied a visa. However, the interaction over instant messaging with “local_mysql_activist” implied that the visa could be overturned by the immigration authorities at the border, so “kv” did not dare go try his luck. I apologise for the inaccurate wording on my part, as it’s technically not true that “several” MySQLers would have got their visas rejected (although I can assure you that’s how “kv” personally feels).

Fourth: The connection between the first instance and the second instance, where my close colleague was rejected a visa, is not evidenced by any official information from the Australian government. The rejection letter merely says ”SHORT TERM BUSINESS ETA APPLICATION WAS NOT APPROVED NO AUTHORITY TO TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA HELD BY PASSENGER”. However, the person who now got rejected has been frequently in Australia and, to the best of my knowledge, lacks any record which would imply a visa rejection (such as, but not limited to, unpaid traffic fines).

Fifth: Some readers have asked me whether I see an Australian anti-open-source conspiracy. Definitely not! The trip was related to an open source conference, and the applicant went by the book, asking for a short-term business visa where many frequently travel on tourist visas for equivalent purposes. Thus, the denial could be the result of an overzealous bureaucrat in the aftermath of #29. But that assessment is firmly in the realm of speculation and has no claim on objectivity.

Sixth: Thanks for all the offers of help! However, by now, linux.conf.au is so close that we can’t appeal this. Flights have had to be cancelled, and are now either full or horrendously expensive. So the harm has been done (for whatever the reason may be) and Sun / MySQL won’t be represented at linux.conf.au at the level originally intended. Some of us will still come, though.

Finally, I’m deeply grateful for all the sympathy and support we got. Thank you!

Now being back from last week’s trip to Ukraine and this week’s trip to Russia, it’s time for an overview.

MySQL was prominently present at both Sun events, the one in Kiev on 26.11.2008 and the one in Moscow last Tuesday 2.12.2008. It was good to discuss with local Sun guys, and to meet MySQL community people and colleagues in both places.

The two first pictures in this post are from the community event at a university of economy in Moscow.

Like elsewhere, I started in the local language (which, perhaps surprisingly, frequently seems to be Russian also in Ukraine), followed by a “MySQL in the Web Economy” presentation in English.

Russia and Ukraine are interesting places, so I blogged quite a bit about the event. But I don’t want to spam Planet MySQL with travel tips and reports of Russian saunas, Russian taxis and Russian food. So here’s a short overview of the other blogs I wrote.

In Swedish:

• A report about the comfortable overnight (18:23-08:25) train journey from Helsinki to Moscow, on the Lev Tolstoy.
• A How-to study on using local metro (subway) to get from Leningradskiy station to Holiday Inn at Lesnaya.
• An account of a Russian banya (sauna), involving steam, birch and oak twigs, kvass, tea, and a special treatment called parit. Including a note about the Italian-Japanese anime Calimero.
• Some tips on taking a black taxi to get from A to B in Moscow.

In German:

• A few ideas on how to learn Russian by simultaneously reading Fandorin in German and in Russian
• The same banya (sauna) story, but from a German, rather than Scandinavian, perspective

In English:

• Out of Ukraine: On sequential interpretation, non-smoking and the concept of “Europe” as interpreted in Ukraine and Finland
• A comparative study in dress code at airports, with Istanbul, Ankara and Kiev as examples
• A nostalgic note to fellow Moscow traveller Zack Urlocker called Moo-moo: Russian fast food
• A self-centered description of food I like, introducing the concept of “kajsher” in Russia serves kajsher food at Elki Palki

In Russian:

• An attempt to describe my Helsinki-Moscow train ride in Russian

Let me conclude by sharing some of the pictures found in the detail blog postings, in miniature format:

The GA announcement of MySQL 5.1 is getting closer by the minute! So it’s time for Position 3 in the MySQL 5.1 Use Case Competition.

3. Corrado Pandiani (Football Club Internazionale Milano Spa, Milan, Italy): Using Partitioning and Event Scheduler for online logging & real-time stats. See Corrado’s DevZone article, and his blog.

Thanks and congratulations, Corrado! I hope you are in a position to take advantage of your free MySQL Conference & Expo 2009 Pass, including a dinner with MySQL co-founder Michael “Monty” Widenius.

Links:

• http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/2008/07/18/mysql-51-use-case-competition/
• http://blogs.mysql.com/kaj/2008/08/26/mysql-51-use-case-competition-until-end-of-september
• http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/pandiani-use-case.html
• http://blog.pandiani.com/category/mysqlen/

Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the three Baltic countries for Sun Microsystems, talking about MySQL powering the Web economy. The tour started on Monday and Tuesday in Vilnius, Lithuania, followed by Riga on Wednesday and Tallinn on Thursday. Many similarities between the countries, which are externally often seen as one unit and which internally sometimes view each other as siblings.

I was joined during the trip by Dutch Sun colleague Martin de Jong, who observed that each of the countries have a larger area than the Netherlands, whereas the combined .lt .lv and .ee population isn’t even half of that of the Netherlands.

But the economic importance of the Baltics is increasing. The Sun Microsystems activities are being managed through Sun Finland, whose country manager Hannu Nyländen accompanied Martin and myself through most of the tour.

I’ll offer some country specific observations, but let me start by saying that the countries don’t share a mutually intelligible language. While Lithuanian and Latvian are related and share some words, they are at least as far apart as German and English. They’re both very old Indo-European languages, with Lithuanian being the older one, with one well-informed Vilnius attendee claiming close relationship between Lithuanian and Sanskrit. Estonian isn’t Indo-European at all, but related to Finnish. Probably a bit closer to Finnish than German is to English (but quite a bit more distant than, say, Danish is from Swedish). At any rate, this leaves young Baltic people speaking English to each other, a bit older ones speaking Russian, whereas a generation or two prior to that, many would likely have spoken German to each other.

The trip started in Vilnius. Sadly, long-time MySQL colleague Domas Mituzas was in the US, so I didn’t meet with him. Instead, we were hosted by Sun Microsystem’s local Business Development Manager Rolandas Kymantas, who had gathered perhaps 60 Lithuanians into Reval Hotel Vilnius, where the venue was held.

I was very challenged to give the first five minutes of my speech in Lithuanian, as pronunciation is non-trivial and the stress was very challenging, on a par with Russian.

To continue my habit of writing blogs in languages I don’t speak, I started a blog also in Lithuanian. The blog is at http://blogs.arno.fi/laisvas_zodis/, where Laisvas žodis means (or at least is supposed to mean) “Free speech”.

The second destination was Riga, familiar to many MySQLers from our Developer Meeting two months ago. Here, we were hosted by Evijs Taube, Sun’s Business Development Manager for Latvia. The event was in Reval Hotel Riga (the one with the bar on the 26th floor), and coincided with the Latvian Open Technologies Association’s event. LATA (for Latvijas atvērto tehnoloģiju asociācija) and its sponsors (among them Sun) had managed to collect a whopping 350 participants to the event.

I was happy to note that my attempt at speaking Latvian was greeted by the audience. One attendee, Janis from Daugavpils (also known as Tvinky), posted a recording of it online. And my Latvian blog is live on http://blogs.arno.fi/labrit/, named Labrīt! for “Good morning!”. I’m curious to see whether there will be any reaction to them, by MySQL’s Latvian friends, such as Michael Dexter, who helped us a lot in September and whom it was a pleasure to meet again.

Estonia and Tallinn was the third and final destination. Again, the hotel belonged to the same chain. Reval Hotel Tallinn is somewhat of a double name, as “Reval” is the old Swedish and German name for Tallinn.

Martin de Jong and I were alone here, as Hannu had left for Finland. Our host was Sun’s Estonian BizDev mgr Maidu Harjak. He had collected roughly as many attendees as Rolandas in Lithuania. On account of knowing Finnish, the Estonian speech wasn’t quite as difficult as Lithuanian or Latvian. Creating an Estonian blog was a bit harder, though, as Google Translate doesn’t help me with that. Instead, I had to resort to Aivar Joonas, my Estonian friend and reconstruction expert working at my country house in Finland. With his help, I chose to host the blog on http://blogs.arno.fi/vaba_lava/. Vaba lava is what you say when it’s time for anyone to speak up, “The floor is open”.

My blogs in Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian so far only contain my speeches in the respective languages. And realistically, I won’t post very frequently to them (in particular, Estonian is not supported by Google Translate). Nonetheless, I hope there is some benefit from having my local presentations online.

Links:

• Vaba lava: Kas Kaj räägib eesti keelt? http://blogs.arno.fi/vaba_lava/
• Labrīt! Vai Kaj runāt latviešu? http://blogs.arno.fi/labrit/
• Laisvas žodis: Ar Kajus kalbu lietuviškai? http://blogs.arno.fi/laisvas_zodis/
• Blog aggregator for all my blogs, across languages: http://kaj.arno.fi/