MySQL daddy backs EU's Snoracle probe MySQL author Monty Widenius has come out in favor of regulators probing Oracle's ownership of MySQL - and against Sun and Oracle execs past and present. Widenius has said he not only supports the European Union's probe of Oracle's proposed $5.6bn purchase of Sun Microsystems - which would give the database giant ownership of …
Monty Widenius sounds a little crazy these days...
If he loved MySQL so much, why did he sell it?
Sun didn't do anything to harm MySQL, he complained a lot about Sun's first release, but that release was planned by MySQL AB 'AND' Monty Widenius himself, before Sun did anything to it...
Sounds a lot to me like he wanted to sell it, get the money, but still keep benefiting from it by attacking Sun and establishing his own fork as the new best thing.
Surely, he will propose that MySQL should be sold to his company and that he will take care of it... I wouldn't trust a person with so many conflicting actions on their shoulders. Better off with Oracle.
The whiner has just realised that he's lost his cash-cow despite being paid over the odds for the "product".
Now he wants it back again for free so he's gone whining to the EU. Why the f*ck did he sell it if he was so attached to it?
Because he's a whining hypocrite.
Funny how he was quite happy to use InnoDB which comes from Oracle. What a loser.
"Funny how he was quite happy to use InnoDB which comes from Oracle"
Get your facts straight.
InnoDB came from InnoDB Oy. InnoDB Oy made a deal with MySQL to include InnoDB in the MySQL product. As part of that deal, the InnoDB source code was opened up.
THEN Oracle bought up InnoDB Oy. And I doubt either MySQL or Monty were very happy about that at all.
Note the tense ....
InnoDB *comes* from Oracle.
Get YOUR facts right.
Monty the whiny ass could've stopped shipping InnoDB libs with MySql but he didn't.
Nobody CARES what you think - despite what your mummy says, the world does NOT revolve around you.
Don't you just love it when retards try to be clever - they fail completely.
Sorry Lars have to agree with Victor2 - Widenius does seem to do things that suit him and him alone. I'm not convinced any more that he has the best interests of MySQL users at heart - if he ever did! Oh and I can't see anything in Victor2s post about Monty owning 51% of MySQL, or anywhere else in the comments or the article.
Why sell it indeed.
I've no doubt that this "Monty Program AB" is acting with altruistic motive and not just lobbying so that M.W. can sell the product and then get major bux by being the only developer still working with the on-again, off-again database "of choice".
What a steaming pile of Hotspur.
"Monty the whiny ass could've stopped shipping InnoDB libs with MySql but he didn't."
Yup, you're right. And throwing away one of the major components of MySQL that your customers have relied on being available for the past 7-8 years would of course have been a really healthy business decision.
Talk about retards trying to be clever...
You see Gamberoni according to Victor 2 Widenius sold MySQL to Sun.
However, You cannot sell anything if you do not own it.
So owing less than +50 percent does not enable any sell to anybody.
And that sell was then to Sun.
The problem to day is that Oracle is about to bye Sun. And that is a completely new situation.
I know you knew from the start that MySQL would end up in the palm of its tuffest competitor, but I am sure Widenius did not expect it.
And from the point of venture and vulture capitalists in old MySQL it does not matter at all.
Lars - thanks for clarifying the situation. Can you explain who got the $1billion that Sun paid for MySQL? It's a while ago now, but I seem to recall that Monty was in charge of MySQL AB when Sun bought them? Perhaps I'm wrong in my assumptions and Monty made nothing out of the sale?
Hello Gamberoni,
Widenius made something between 100 and 150m euros (before tax) as far as I remember.
A lot of money, sure. But was he the architect for selling out to Sun. I do not know. With a limited amount of shares you cannot do it alone. And again it was Sun not Oracle.
The "funny" thing is that I have more "belief" in Widenius now, than before, because with some money in your pocket you can be more independet than before.
PS. Monty was not in charge of MySQL, Mickos was the boss. Widenius was the programmer/analyst (from the beginning).
Bye now, Widenius and Mickos seem to have rather conflicting opinions regarding MySQL.
I have a feeling that Monty has more "hart" for MySQL than any of the others.
May I suppose that we both feel that the future of MySQL is important.
Regards Lars
Lars
We must stop meeting like this!
My sole concern here is that of the survival of Sun. Yes, Oracle don't have the greatest record of "maintaining" products that they buy when they compete - or nearly compete with their own products. But I do think that interventions by Monty and Richard Stallmann are disingenuous at best - I don't think they are representing anyone's interests but their own in this matter!
But, in the global scheme of things, there is actually quite a lot of competition in the database arena - in open and closed source applications. Probably more than in any other area of software? I just wonder if Sun hadn't paid so much for MySQL, whether there would be quite this much furore. Would there have been similar "issues" if IBM had bought Sun and thus acquired MySQL to add to it's little stockpile of databases (db2, informix, unidata, etc.).
Finally , MySQL is open source. Monty has already forked it, and there's nothing to stop Oracle just canning all the MySQL development team and leaving it where it is now. Where would that leave MySQL users? Pretty much where they were before Sun bought MySQL AB out. But I can't see Oracle doing that anytime soon. They are going to need the revenue that Sun selling support contracts for MySQL brings in, and support contracts won't get renewed without innovation.
All in all Oracle buying Sun is the best option of the ones available. An independent Sun is a non-starter from here on in, so we might as well get on with it. My two-penny-worth.
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