What Monty says about the Oracle/Sun situation

MySQL inventor Michael “Monty” Widenius shares his thoughts on the deal and its impact on MySQL.

What could be Oracle’s plan with MySQL? Three different plans come to mind:

• They are going to kill MySQL (either directly or by not developing/supporting it fully)
• MySQL will get sold of to another entity, either because Oracle doesn’t want it or becasue of anti-trust laws.
• They will embrace MySQL and Open Source and put their technical expertise on it to ensure that MySQL continues to be the most popular advanced Open Source database.

–Michael Widenius, Founder and original developer of MySQL.

Though he hopes for the third option, he doesn’t seem to have much faith in Oracle and its open source efforts.  He also questions the idea of “owning” open source software, noting that communities are more important than trademarks.

It appears the roots of MySQL are already being reborn in Monty Program Ab.  If this is a successful effort, I think MySQL enthusiasts will be fine, even if the database they use in no longer branded MySQL.