At the end of the Orlando meeting in January this year when the Sun acquisition was announced, I remember sitting next to MySQL’s co-founder David Axmark in the bus going to some evening event. “What do you want to do now, with so many opportunities opening up?” was my question to him, partly as his friend, partly as his colleague and partly as his line manager. David seemed very confident in the future of MySQL within Sun, but less sure about his own future role.

With that as a background, and knowing David since well over 20 years, I was not all that surprised to read his resignation letter, and in particular his reasoning for resigning:

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.

Let me recap what David has done for MySQL. David is the reason MySQL is FOSS. Without David, MySQL wouldn’t be GPL (Monty originally planned a closed-source product). David is also the reason people associate MySQL primarily with Sweden and less so with Finland, since MySQL AB was founded in Uppsala to be close to David (and our third co-founder Allan Larsson).

(The above scene from Stockholm harbour shows the boats of database entrepreneurs David Axmark and Larry Ellison; after the acquisition of MySQL by Sun, David may afford an upgrade, even after his donation to the Software Freedom Law Center).

I wish David would have stayed longer at Sun, but I understand why he decided to resign and I respect his decision. I’m happy he’s fine with working as a consultant for Sun, doing speaking engagements and connecting us with his huge network. It’s very much appreciated.

We share so many fond memories together, starting from our first meeting sometimes in the 1980s at Monty’s place in Gamla Skomakarböle, in the outskirts of Helsinki. And then there was the memorable trip to MySQL’s first CeBIT appearance in 2001, just after I had agreed with Mårten and Monty to join MySQL. And hiking in Larry Stefonic’s bivvy sacks on a mountain in Washington. And countless other stories.

I’ve learnt so much from David, particularly as he’s been my predecessor, role model and esteemed colleague in plenty of respects over the time at MySQL AB. He has lead Engineering, before we started to recruit people with the title of “VP Engineering”. He’s lead Internal IT. He’s lead the Community efforts. He’s worked with the FSF. He’s managed and moderated his somewhat more, ehmm, hot-tempered co-founder Monty. He’s travelled the world, with a particular fondness for Asia. And he’s taken oodles of digital pictures. Not that I’ve followed David in all aspects, but it does seem I’ve copied him in the above respects, with sometimes a shorter, sometimes longer latency.

You won’t be surprised that I feel a deep gratitude for what David has done. In particular, I want to thank him for introducing me to all the wonderful people in the FOSS community. And I’m sure all Sun Dolphins will join me in the most important thank-you note:

Thanks David for having and pursuing the vision that made you found MySQL!

Lest we become overly sentimental, let me say that I am confident David will continue in his role as an overall FOSS ambassador. Nearly a quarter century working on FOSS as a pioneer gives David insights that few of us have, that Sun is happy to continue learning from, and that I’m sure David is happy to share with budding Open Source companies.

I’m just back home from Brazil, where I went last Sunday in order to launch MySQL’s presence in Brazil and meet with MySQL users, developers, Sun customers, the press as well as with numerou Sun colleagues. “Is this your first time in Brazil?” was a frequent question (as one could expect), and I was happy to respond that it wasn’t. In fact, I have particularly fond memories of my first visit to Brazil in 2001, as that was the trip when I decided to join MySQL AB.

They say Rio de Janeiro is one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. Whoever “they” are, they’re right. The cone in the middle is Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain, der Zuckerhut, Sockertoppen).

As a European, I again noted that Brazil frequently feels much more like home than the US does. In Brazil, they use the metric system, they measure temperature in Celsius, they write dates and times of day in a familiar way, they cheer for Formula 1 drivers and they play football. My Brazilian colleagues and I fought a bit over whether Finland or Brazil produces the better F1 drivers, but despite Finland nearly beating Germany (thanks Jonatan Johansson, Mika Väyrynen and Daniel Sjölund!) in the World Championship qualifications last month, I had to concede to the football superiority of the Brazilians. Nonetheless, it felt good to meet with colleagues to whom I could describe the ethical dilemma my son Alexander faced (and explained in his newly started German language football blog) when MySQL 5.1 user Corrado Pandiani from Inter Milan sent him gadgets that on the one hand are objectively speaking very cool (such as a poster signed by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Luis Figo and Marco Materazzi), but on the other hand represent a team which a Bayern München fan like him has hard to identify with.

But back to MySQL. This week, I had the pleasure of not just attending the Sun Tech Days including its press events, but also visit many customers in both São Paulo, Brasília and Rio de Janeiro. It’s great to see the broad interest for MySQL. Yet, the interest for MySQL in Brazil didn’t surprise me. We know from the download statistics that .br is a top five country for downloads, and more concretely, MySQL had a sizable following in Brazil already in 2001. When Mårten Mickos (MySQL’s then newly appointed CEO), Michael “Monty” Widenius (co-founder) and a number of friends of ours visited the Rio Carnival wearing MySQL t-shirts, we were stopped on Copacabana beach and asked whether “we are also MySQL users“. What a feeling it was, to personally experience recognition for MySQL over seven years ago, in a country where none of us had been before!

Ah, as I am walking down Memory Lane, let me share a few other pics from 2001 (the ones from this week are still in Philip Antoniades’s camera):

Mårten and Monty looking at where to go in the Rio metro. As this was during the pre-Sakila-lithic era, Monty wore an old, dragon type “mySQL” T-shirt (yes, lower case m).

Helvécio Borges Filho from EAC (to the right of me) hosted us in 2001, and over the years, we’ve met many times since at MySQL Users Conferences and elsewhere — such as last Tuesday at Sun Tech Days in São Paulo. Yesterday, Copacabana was quite a bit more rainy than above.

Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) at the Corcovado Mountain.

Monty evidently also wants to redeem (with Corcovado in the background). And I am always fond of teasing Monty for his taste for a particular artificial drink with a closed-source recipe.

As I’m sure you can tell, I was very impressed with Brazil both in 2001 and in 2008. I won’t wait seven years until my next visit!

We have a rumour of MySQL co-founder Michael “Monty” Widenius resigning, as posted by Valleywag and expanded by Sheeri Kritzer Cabral.

Usually, I wouldn’t comment on rumours. But as I’ve been asked copious amounts of questions, let me make an exception today.

First, it’s a rumour. Technically there is no resignation letter. However, I spoke to Monty yesterday, and yes, resignation is an option he considers.

Second, Monty’s resignation has been a possible outcome already since years before the Sun acquisition. Perhaps his resignation at some point is inevitable, given that the type of skills and qualities needed to make MySQL great are different from those needed for working productively in a larger organisation (and I am referring to the size of the MySQL team, not Sun).

Monty indeed has been thinking for the past several years about retiring into a smaller company of his own where he could focus on special needs and engineering work related to the MySQL server, which is his passion. As is widely known, Monty single-handedly developed the initial MySQL product in the 1980s and 1990s, taking the world by storm long before most of us joined MySQL AB. And Monty has continued to work in the company he founded, for the purpose of fully commercialising the potential of MySQL. He has remained a major shareholder until the acquisition by Sun Microsystems in February 2008.

All of us who have worked at MySQL (and now Sun) know the vital role that Monty played in creating the product, building a loyal user community, and always advocating for the three software design priorities he settled for when the MySQL project started: reliability, performance and ease of use. Monty’s passion for the code has only been surpassed by his passion for the users of it. And whatever happens, I don’t expect his passions to change.

Should Monty indeed leave MySQL, it would signal the dawn of a new era. Over the last several years, we have developed our engineering team to be independent of single persons — including Monty. Naturally, the value that Monty as a core member has provided has been enormous, but at the same time we have tried to make sure that we have backups and stand-ins. We are not done with that work, but we’re getting in shape.

Monty leaving us would be a sad moment in that it changes a model we have been working under for the last 13 years. At the same time I’m sure we’ll continue to work with Monty and turn to him as a superb expert in key areas of technology.

Overall, we are continuing to serve customers as before. New versions are being prepared, existing versions are being maintained and bugs are being fixed. MySQL version 5.1 is going through its final release candidate versions and is expected to go GA by the end of the calendar year. And we have just opened the call for papers for the MySQL Conference in April. The theme for 2009 is “Innovation Everywhere”.

In summary, I can neither confirm nor deny the rumour. But I hope my posting has shed some light on the situation.