MySQL sees 'invisible hand' at work in open source

IDGNS: So, is open source then a more forgiving environment than the proprietary software world?

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Mickos: No, you're not forgiven, but open source is self-healing. There's no forgiveness, but someone else can cover up for you. A year ago, Oracle bought InnoDB. Now, a year later, there are many ways you can store MySQL and many players. It's like the invisible hand that Adam Smith spoke about is really working. There's some sort of invisible hand guiding open source. At the end of the day, something good can come out of it. Some people are very angry with FSF, still people will see a community and a good outcome [with GPLv3].

IDGNS: What's ahead in 2007 for MySQL?

Mickos: We'll see a strong uptake in the enterprise market as the number of users running MySQL 5.0 grows. It takes time for developers to adopt the new version; it's starting to happen. We'll see more partners. We already have Novell, Hewlett-Packard, Unisys, and recently Red Hat. There will be others. With our technologies, there will be Falcon and MySQL 5.1. We're doing great work on our GUI (graphical user interface) tools and making our ODBC (open database connectivity) and JDBC drivers even better.

IDGNS: What's the latest news on Falcon, the transactional database engine being developed by database architect Jim Starkey who joined MySQL in February?

Mickos: It's not just Jim Starkey. We have a handful of engineers working closely with him. The next stage is for Falcon to be in alpha [testing], which will be soon.

IDGNS: Is MySQL's current dominance of the open-source database market ever a cause for concern?

Mickos: I do hear sometimes from staff, "We're great. We don't need to work." But then our engineers are very self-deprecating and they get embarrassed about any problems. It's a balancing act. Sometimes, I have to say to the organization, "Cheer up, we have a great product;" other times, "Don't be complaisant. We're not done yet." If we're good, we keep going at it until we feel we're done and can rest. If something bad happens, we should work a little bit harder to get it done. Like it looked bad when Oracle acquired InnoDB. At first it was "What the heck are we going to do?" But we turned it to our advantage.