MySQL founder joins Sun exodus

Monty Widenius, the original author of the MySQL database server, has resigned from Sun Microsystems after months of protracted discussions about his career.

In a blog post, Widenius cited the botched release of MySQL 5.1 as the motivation for him to offer his immediate resignation back in August 2008.

Widenius wrote: "The main reason for leaving was that I am not satisfied with the way the MySQL server has been developed... In particular I would have liked to see the server development be moved to a true open development environment that would encourage outside participation and without any need of differentiation on the source code. Sun has been considering opening up the server development, but the pace has been too slow."

Sun management and Widenius came to an agreement whereby Widenius would stay for three months, which turned into seven months, to assist with the MySQL development until they could find him a role within Sun.

Widenius will be creating his own company called Monty Program Ab that will work on the Maria project, a transactional storage engine for MySQL, and expects some of the existing Maria team members to move with him; other team members will remain within Sun.

Widenius stated that he still thought that Sun was the best possible buyer for MySQL.