Well we are all quite excited about what's going on with MySQL AB. We have read the talk about MySQL 6.0 and the upcoming Falcon storage engine. We have read the news about SUN having bought up MySQL AB and how this is going to improve their abilities. We also took note about Monty's first blog posts and the announcement of the Maria storage engine. But in the middle of this, I wonder if the priorities are sorted properly.

Again, the above mentioned stuff is all big news and very important. But since quite some time I have not heard anything about MySQL 5.1. Wasn't 5.1 supposed to be GA last fall? Aren't we all really excited …

We just had an internal discussion about if sticking with PHP limits your career options. And just now (coincidence?) I noticed blog posts in the PHP and MySQL community noting similar concerns. The issue is that there is simply not enough top qualified talent that knows LAMP well enough to hire. Or maybe its just too hard to find them? It seems all the good guys are already hired. As a result companies end up looking for other technology, not because they actually believe that these technologies are any better or worth the license fees that these usually require to be paid up ..

So whats the problem here? Well I think one of the key issues is that LAMP focus on solving issues with a very non academic way. This implies that …

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We released our official earnings on Thursday last week, after pre-announcing the news one week prior alongside the announcement of our intent to acquire MySQL.

Our second quarter financial announcement came down to this: we doubled our profitability compared to a year ago, with $260 million in net income on revenues of $3.6 billion, while generating $336 million in cash from operations. We also repurchased $750 million of our own shares within the quarter, and reaffirmed our guidance for the full year of low to mid …

I passed the MySQL 5.0 DBA I and II certification tests today with very nice results. Just figured I’d post that so it’s verifiable that I’m not entirely spewing nonsense and general rabble. Today is a good day, and I will celebrate with the finest wines, and choicest of meats.

Exam Date: Monday, January 28, 2008 at 9:00 AM
Candidate: Matthew Reid
Candidate ID: MYSQL005372
Registration #: xxxxx2740
Exam Series: 005-002
Exam: Certified MySQL 5.0 DBA Part I
Validation #: xxxxx5662
Grade: pass

Exam Date: Monday, January 28, 2008 at 10:30 AM
Candidate: Matthew Reid
Candidate ID: MYSQL005372
Registration #: xxxxx7164
Exam Series: 006-002
Exam: Certified MySQL 5.0 DBA Part II
Validation #: xxxxxx5956
Grade: pass

As many of you know I am not very fond of the entire CLA idea. However as of late there have been some incorrect assertions around the entire CLA proposal, which I want to correct before people waste more time on the wrong arguments against the CLA proposal. I will have some better arguments against it at the end of this blog post.

It has been unclear to people if the only companies that were approached were big vendors like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft with MySQL AB tacked on. I know that PostgreSQL was asked from the very beginning. While they did not have someone to step up at the beginning of discussions, they did have someone join the discussion later on. Also for all I hear SQLite was also asked. However Richard did not have time to join the debates, which so far have been mainly about legal topics anyways. Now I dont know if Firebird was …

The following is essentially a repost of what I send to the PDO list. However I felt that since I have discussed this topic extensively on my blog before, I should also put this on my blog. Also it might be a slightly calmer reply than what others have posted. Finally after weeks of waiting we now have a proposal on the table of how the likes of IBM, Oracle and Microsoft feel that they could become code contributors to PDO. I agree we should see this as an opportunity. Getting new people on board is always a good thing (tm). I have read through …

I commented on Jonathan Schwartz's blog on his "Helping Dolphins Fly" post. I was not surprised to find that the blog is moderated. I mean its well worth the manual time to keep the blog of your head honcho clean. I don't remember what I said exactly, but I did voice some concerns about the fact that I have not really seen participate much in the scripting world. Suffice it to say my post was never published. It seems I never have anything nice to say about big cooperations. So I want to try something new for a change: Saying something nice about big cooperations.

First up is MySQL err .. SUN. Since they got scooped up they qualify as a big cooperation (of course). I have really appreciated the bulk of the work that MySQL AB …

Now with MySQL AB having been scooped up (as noted by 99% of the blogosphere including myself), what about SAP and open source? IIRC SAP was one of the investors into MySQL AB (not sure how large a chunk they held). SAP really put a lot of weight behind MySQL when they handed over SAP DB (renamed to MaxDB) to MySQL and made it clear that they expect MySQL to be SAP certified any day now (has this happened?).

At the same time SAP has been sending "mixed messages" at best in regards to OSS. And they …

In a vortex. That's the only way to describe the past thirty days, during which we closed out our second quarter, and put together the transaction to acquire MySQL. How'd it all start?

"That'll never happen, I've been trying for years." That's what I told Rich Green (EVP, Software at Sun) about six months ago in response to his assertion, "if there were one company I'd love to acquire, it'd be MySQL. They're an amazing company." Why'd I say it was impossible?

For nearly five years, I've been getting together for dinner with Marten Mickos, MySQL's CEO, catching up on the industry, chatting about trends and business models, and just as the dessert was about to be served... I'd say, "geez, we have so much in common, Marten, we …

Here’s something I wrote up a while back for basic MySQL knowledge. MySQL Competency

This is also a useful list of interview questions for potential hires. DBA Interview Questions