Gawker: valleywag, monty widenius

Another MySQL founder soft-quits

Paul Boutin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:20:00 EDT

First it was Monty Widenius who quit, or didn't, or was thinking about resignation as an option or something. Now David Axmark has officially resigned from Sun Microsystems, which bought MySQL the company — not to be confused with MySQL the open-source software — for a billion dollars in January. Like Monty before him, Axmark isn't completely quitting. He's going to "work with MySQL and Sun on a less formal basis" because, he says in a resignation letter, "I HATE all the rules that I need to follow, and I also HATE breaking them." Dude, it's called middle age. Here's the official blurb from MySQL spokesblogger Kaj Arnö:

Let me recap what David has done for MySQL. David is the reason MySQL is FOSS. Without David, MySQL wouldn’t be GPL (Monty originally planned a closed-source product). David is also the reason people associate MySQL primarily with Sweden and less so with Finland, since MySQL AB was founded in Uppsala to be close to David (and our third co-founder Allan Larsson).

If anyone finds yet another MySQL co-founder, please send him or her our way.

Was MySQL creator's resignation rumor just a negotiating tactic?

Owen Thomas — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:40:00 EDT

We'd heard, on good authority, that Monty Widenius, creator of the popular open-source database MySQL, the foundation of most modern Web apps, had quit Sun, not long after the server maker's $1 billion purchase of his company. MySQL's designated community panderer, Kaj Arnö, muddied the waters with a maybe-he-will-maybe-he-won't blog post. Now, at last, via Infoworld, an explanation: Widenius is negotiating with Sun for a new role at MySQL. Which raises the question: Was he ever really planning to leave, or was he just telling people that to see how his corporate overseers would react?

MySQL founder avoids True/False result on resignation query

Paul Boutin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:20:00 EDT

Michael "Monty" Widenius, the leading mind behind the open-source database program MySQL, was credibly rumored to have resigned from Sun Microsystems last Thursday. Now Kaj Arnö, the VP of community for MySQL AB, the Swedish company acquired by Sun for a billion bucks in January, has done a spectacular job of confusing the hell out of everyone with an equivocating post on the topic. Arnö talked to Widenius and wrote: "Technically there is no resignation letter. However, I spoke to Monty yesterday, and yes, resignation is an option he considers ... In summary, I can neither confirm nor deny the rumour. But I hope my posting has shed some light on the situation." No, Kaj, no it hasn't. (Photo by Sebastian Bergmann)