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MySQL Founder Monty Quits Sun (Or Not)
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Fri Sep 05, 2008 03:25 PM
from the who-didn't-predict-that dept.
from the who-didn't-predict-that dept.
Paul Boutin writes "A reliable source tells Valleywag that MySQL inventor Michael Widenius, better known as Monty, has resigned from Sun. Sun bought Monty's MySQL company in a billion-dollar deal last January. Brian Aker, who forked the Web 2.0-friendly Drizzle SQL database (and former Slashdot engineer!), remains at Sun." Kaj Arnö and Sheeri Cabral share their thoughts.
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Mad Merlin writes "It's no secret that MySQL 5.1 has been a long time in the making, with the first beta release being in Nov 2005, but MySQL 5.1.30 has finally been released as GA. MySQL users can expect new features such as table/index partitioning, row based replication, a new plugin architecture, an event scheduler and a host of performance improvements from 5.1." Monty also had a blog post outlining some of the challenges faced in 5.1, including crashing bugs and a beta quality to most new features.
[+]
Slimmed Down MySQL Offshoot Drizzle is Built For the Web 370 comments
Incon writes "Builder AU reports that Brian Aker, MySQL's director of architecture, has unveiled Drizzle, a database project aimed at powering websites with massive concurrency as well as trimming superfluous functionality from MySQL. Drizzle will have a micro-kernel architecture with code being removed from the Drizzle core and moved through interfaces into modules. Aker has already selected particular functionality for removal: modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data conversion inserts, access control lists and some data types."
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Please use this thread to do the following: (Score:5, Funny)
1. Tell us how great your database is, (ie. postgres, mssql server, oracle etc..)
2. Tell us how shitty mysql is in your eyes.
3. Tell us how mysql "sold out"
So everything under this thread can be modded as "redundant"
Thank You.
Re:Please use this thread to do the following: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Now now. PHP is a pain but a dang useful pain. Just like MySQL.
PHP and MySQL are both good but not great tools. What makes them useful is all the stuff that works with them.
I would drop MySQL in a second for Postgres except that too many CMS and other packages use it. The same is true of PHP.
There happy now?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Okay Mr. Cranky Pants.
Re:Please use this thread to do the following: (Score:5, Interesting)
Tell us how great your database is, (ie. postgres, mssql server, oracle etc..)
I'd rather tell why I think databases in general suck: Lack of standardization. It's one thing if you could do like with browsers and make compatibility chart with ANSI SQL, but it's choking full of proprietary extensions. Hopefully they'll sooner or later get around to supporting SQL:2003 which takes care of the worst ones. Here's one example, creating an unique ID:
The standard specifies a column attribute of: ... AS IDENTITY (non-core feature ID T174+T175).
GENERATED
PostgreSQL doesn't support the standard's IDENTITY attribute.
DB2: Follows standard, albeit with some restrictions on how identity columns may (not) be added to an existing table, etc.
MSSQL offers IDENTITY as a column property, but with a different syntax (not as intuitive and with less options) than the standard's specification.
MySQL doesn't support the standard's IDENTITY attribute.
Oracle doesn't support the standard's IDENTITY attribute.
And they bloody well all have a way of doing it, it's just five different ways. That's what I hate about databases, you don't pick one for RDBMS features but because you need to pick a language. It's like picking a computer because of the compiler. They seriously need to get the standards *ahead* of the implementations, like for example browsers and HTML/CSS standards. Or at least get a reasonable subset standard so you can write a non-trivial database neutral application.
Parent
Re:Please use this thread to do the following: (Score:4, Insightful)
Couldn't agree more. My other big pet peeve is applications that are database-specific (which obviously is related to the fact that app designers don't have much choice in the matter). I don't want to install my own MSSQL server for the sake of the one application that can't run on my company's enterprise scale server farm running some other RDBMS. I don't want to pick a different application that doesn't meet my user's needs simply because it handles the other RDBMS.
Oh, and if we actually had some standards perhaps there would also be a chance that every time Oracle releaes a new software releaes it wouldn't break half the applications I manage...
Parent
Shoot (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'd just made a billion-dollar deal for my company, I'd sure look long and hard at not working anymore.
Re:Shoot (Score:5, Funny)
Posting at slashdot, Yoda is.
Parent
Re:Shoot (Score:5, Interesting)
No Crystal ball needed to see that Sun isn't long for this world.
Sun's market cap is down to $6.4 billion. Sun has over $2B in cash, $3B in receivables, and $1B in inventory and stock in other companies.
You could make a profit today (if you could buy the company for thet 6.4B, which you can't) by buying Sun, ceasing all sales and business activity beyond existing support contacts, and just gutting the company for the cash, real estate, etc.
If Sun falls much more, it *will* be profitable to buy and gut the company, as was done very frequently to companies in similar positions in the 80s. For any tech company that *wanted* Sun for some reason, it's nearly free to buy it today.
Heck, one of Suns few remaining large accounts might find it cheaper to buy Sun than to renew it's support contract!
I think the only reason why one of the big consulting companies (Accenture etc) hasn't bough Sun just for bragging right is that those are partnerships, and don't have the leverage.
Parent
Basic astronomy ! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Basic astronomy ! (Score:4, Insightful)
But I understand where you're coming from.
Parent
no golden handcuffs ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no golden handcuffs ? (Score:5, Insightful)
They probably had a 9-month contract to keep him around and now the 9 months are up.
It is extremely common for the previous owner/ceo to bail out in a year or so after their company is acquired.
Parent
Please tell me... (Score:5, Funny)
...he's leaving to work on Python.
I mean, the PSF needs good, experienced developers, and, um, that's all.
Is it still MySQL? (Score:5, Funny)
With the founder leaving, the name MySQL no longer fits.
Next slashdot poll...
MySQL's new name should be:
1. TheirSQL
2. SunSQL
3. JavaSQL
4. CowboynealSQL
I vote for #4.
Re:Is it still MySQL? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is it still MySQL? (Score:4, Interesting)
You forgot the version 9 at the end, even though there was no 6, 7, or 8.
Parent
Monty on the Run (Score:4, Funny)
Well, I would do the same (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, I would do the same (Score:5, Funny)
Well no, the ultimate dream of every nerd is to have a threesome with Jessica Alba and Natalie Portman (petrified!) with hot grits down their pants, but I'm sure the retiring early thing is a close second.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You mean besides hiring the guys who beat him up in high school to mow his 16-acre lawn?
Re:Well, I would do the same (Score:5, Informative)
Having slightly met Monty W, he is a true nerd. He didn't build a billion dollar company, he built a database that did what he thought databases should do. Many people do not exactly agree with him (see arguments on /. ad nauseam). But other people built a billion dollar company on that database. It deos not surprise me at all that he has taken his share of that billion dollars and walked off into the sunset. Maybe it is to Fiji, but even if it is, I would hazard a guess he will still be playing with databases on the beach.
Parent
interesting timing (Score:5, Interesting)
Monty's been working on the interesting "Maria" transactional engine [mysql.com] (evolved from, and compatible with MyISAM), which is slated to become MySQL's future default engine.
Since they recently made a feature-complete ("no known bugs"!) release [blogspot.com] of Maria, I'm tempted to think that was his personal deadline to quit.
Josh Berkus [toolbox.com] (core PostgreSQL developer) also recently quit Sun. [toolbox.com]
I like Sun. I'm sad that they have lost these two brilliant database engineers, and I hope they go on and kick Oracle's (and that other company's) butt anyway.
Re:Falcon architect Starkey also gone (Score:4, Informative)
Parent