Slashdot Mirror
MySQL Co-Founder Monty Widenius Quits Sun
BobB-nw writes "Michael 'Monty' Widenius, the original developer of the open-source MySQL database, has left Sun Microsystems and is starting his own company, Monty Program Ab, he said in a blog post Thursday. Widenius and Sun had a slightly rocky relationship since the vendor bought MySQL last year for $1 billion. In a much-discussed November blog post, he trashed Sun's decision to give MySQL 5.1 a 'generally available' designation, saying it was riddled with serious bugs.
Meanwhile, Monty Program Ab will be 'a true open-source company,' with only a small number of employees who 'strive to have fun together and share the profit we create.' The company will work on the Maria project, a storage engine Widenius and others developed, he wrote.'"
I've been a fan of MySQL for several years, using it alongside other database platforms for a huge variety of tasks. I appreciate the hard work that has gone into MySQL, regardless of the never-ending flamewars on this-platform-or-that-is-superior. Yeah, I use Postgresql a lot these days, but I also still use MySQL.
I wish him all the best with his new venture, and look forward to seeing what sort of stuff he comes up with next.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
The same has happened to the Blogger founders after they were bought by Google. If you're a startup guy working for a 20,000 employee company is not going to cut it. And to make things worse you won't have control over the product you created anymore.
I'm surprised it took him so long to quit.
--
Can you say, piece of shit?
Meanwhile, Monty Program Ab will be 'a true open-source company,' with only a small number of employees who 'strive to have fun together and share the profit we create.'
This is all good until real money starts pouring in and someone wants/needs more money or claims they are more deserving than another or something along those lines. Then the "fun" arrangement becomes less fun and more bitter. Other things that can spoil the fun are if someone decides to wear only black turtlenecks or attempts to make himself into a god of some sort.
Yeah, if I had to pick anyone to fail it would be the guy who cofounded MySQl and sold it for a billion dollars. You nailed it, I'm sure nothing his startup does will be successful or be worth money.
Why didn't he go all the way and name it "Monty Program's Flying Code Circus"?!
He's actually got a blog post on it right here: http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-if.html
"Relational." "Rational" isn't a word that's often applied to MySQL.
You need to read your prospectuses: "Past performance is no indicator of future success."
Monty's not the golden goose; he will not lay golden eggs each time he squats. He is not the child of destiny, the master of The Street, the database Messiah. He's just a very naughty boy. Ok, maybe not. But he is a guy who created a good product, sold it to desperate overcapitalized suckers, and jumped ship just before the balloon collapsed and sent the economy screaming "Oh the Humanity" into the ground.
I wouldn't even credit him with a good sense of timing, if he thinks this is the time for a startup like he's proposing.
We shall see.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
I've started a number of companies and you're saying a bunch of stuff that isn't really accurate.
You don't make money making Open Source Software, you make money supporting it / consulting services, packaging and distribution. Making software is expensive.
Actually making software can be pretty cheap, relatively speaking. Engineering costs for any pure software company are 10%-25% of total costs. Most of the cost is actually in sales, marketing, and administration. Don't take my word for it - look up the income statement of any publicly traded software company from Microsoft on down.
Being a 'a true open-source company,' leads to little teeth to get a good competitive advantage.
That doesn't necessarily have to be true at all. If you are the developer of a given piece of software and if companies will pay for services relating to that software, the primary developer is in the best position to provide those services since no one knows the software better. Furthermore it is impossible to undercut open source software on price so deep pockets don't help the big guy like they might if the company depended on revenue via a traditional software business model. Once the software is installed companies find it expensive to switch platforms which can mean recurring revenue and barriers to entry. That's certainly the basis for competitive advantage though not any assurance of such advantage.
If you work harder then everyone else you should deserve more.
Deserve? Maybe, but maybe not. The party that takes the most financial risk is who deserves and will get the most reward or take the biggest losses. Hard work is a factor but not even close to the biggest one. You don't make the biggest bucks unless you have the most skin in the game.
A Small company against the big guys. It will take a while to gain trust. If you start out big(ish) then you can actually get some automatic cred.
A guy with a track record of starting successful organizations (like MySQL) often gets to skip this step. The hardest company to start is usually the first one because no investor knows who the hell you are and they certainly don't trust you. Plus pretty much no one starts off big. Only guys with a track record are able to raise the large dollar amounts necessary to start "big".
Where is funding going to start how will you get a loan. If he does get one the banks are stupider then I thought.
Very, very few startups get funding from a bank. Banks want tangible assets as collateral for the money they loan and startups rarely have such assets. Usually funding comes from friends, family, angels, private equity, venture capital, government small business loans and various other sources. Banks, not so much.
I have to admit that I am glad to see him leave Sun. I am developing an Open Source POS system and originally I was using MySQL as the database. I sent an email to MySQL about distribution questions and was then contacted by different sales people trying to talk me out of Open Sourcing my project. "Do you really want you competitors to have your POS code"... "How are you going make money off of Open Source". I felt bullied.
Understand that MySQL is only GPL (Free) if everything touching it is also GPL (or internal use only). If we distribute it with MySQL and make it commercial, we need to pay yearly for MySQL ($$$). That is understood when dealing with GPL software. Just don't try and talk me out of GPL'ing my code to line your pockets. Business models like this hurt the Open Source community and don't promote Open Source software!
Comment removed based on user account deletion