

MySQL Founder Leaves Sun Microsystems; Will Work on MySQL Outside of Sun - mdasen
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2009/02/mysql-founder-monty-leaves-sun.html

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andreyf
_Widenuis was livid about the way that the MySQL 5.1 release happened which he
thought was incomplete and loaded with bugs. Sun countered that Widenuis was
entitled to his opinion, but in their view MySQL 5.1 was a solid release._

I've been working with SpringSource code lately, and this seems to be a common
issue. If your business model depends on selling "Enterprise level support",
making the user experience easy and bug-free just isn't in your interests...

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jacquesm
MySQL historically had a very good reputation for fixing bugs and taking care
of the users when they first started out, but as their focus shifted taking
care of the users became less of a priority.

The weird thing is the bugs that Monty claims were 'riddling 5.1' were there
for a lot longer than they should have been anyway, plenty of them predated
the buyout by SUN.

~~~
twoz
Perhaps it was thought that the long list of bugs would finally get the
attention they needed after the Sun buyout.

It's now been a while since the buyout and I'm sure more than one person is a
little frustrated with the way things have turned out at this point; for
better or for worse.

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jmtame
this is a very common problem that i've seen on projects, even my own. as they
grow larger, you almost inevitably lose focus on the stuff that matters. i
think he has every reason to be mad that they were releasing buggy versions,
and i'm glad he left.

too many people get complacent when you grow, and they forget that you can't
slack off just because you've gotten somewhere. the fact that you even GOT to
be one of the leading database solutions in the first place should suggest
that you were doing all of the right things up to that point.

i saw this happen recently in a project i was involved with. it's funny the
way people just sort of "stop caring" after a while, especially about small
details.

bill gates has a point when he says "nobody is forced to buy our software, and
unless we improve the next version, people won't buy it. so there's a serious
incentive for us to keep innovating and pushing the software forward." i'm not
taking sides, but the guy has a point. get complacent, and die. note to
trolls: do not digress into debate about why microsoft sucks.

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jacquesm
I think my comment about a divorce in the making in that thread about drizzle
the other day wasn't too far from the mark.

When MySQL got acquired by SUN there was a lot of speculation how long the
honeymoon would last, it seems that with a fork underway and a founder gone
that the honeymoon is definitely over.

Now I'm starting to get really worried because what with mysql being the M in
LAMP it probably is just as important to the continued development of the web
as any of those 3 other packages (with the 'p' being your scripting language
of choice).

~~~
ruby_roo
Say hello to the LAP stack. Linux, Apache, Perl/Python/PHP/PostgreSQL.

~~~
andreyf
Wouldn't that be LAPP, meaning Linux, Apache, Perl/Pythong/PHP, PostgreSQL?

~~~
gsiener
Technically, I think it would be Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL, Perl/Python/PHP

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lallysingh
Funny thing is, I seem to recall that Sun engineers used to be able to hold
off a release of a product until they thought it was really ready to go.

Which sounded like it really helped quality and got the team involved.

Sadly, either I heard wrong, they stopped, or they didn't implement that for
MySQL.

