Community development: O’Reilly joins MySQL Board
MySQL is really working hard to foster its community, and now the MySQL Winter of Code initiative sounds just like the first notable step. Today Tim O’Reilly explained why he just joined the MySQL Board.
O’Reilly by Duncan Davidson
Second, Märten, Monty, and David asked me nicely :-), and after some substantial discussions with them, I came to the conclusion that I could add some value to the company. They were looking for someone who had a sense of the competing pressures of business and open source idealism, and could help them steer a careful course through the obstacles. As open source grows up, there can be tension between its community roots and its business aspirations. But that tension can also be a creative force, and MySQL AB wants to be sure to continue to harness the creativity of the open source developer community, as it becomes an ever-more viable alternative to existing closed source commercial databases.
Well done MySQL, well done.. and they are already getting the very first result:
While I’m on the subject of MySQL, I should mention that O’Reilly produces the MySQL User Conference in conjunction with MySQL AB. The conference will be held April 23-26 in Santa Clara. The early registration discount ends March 14, so if you’re interested in MySQL, you should sign up now.
Whatever you call it – Word of Mouth, Liquid, or Viral Marketing – it works, and any commercial open source firm just need it indeed.
Savio Rodrigues 11:32 pm on March 9, 2007 Permalink
Cool – thanks for pointing this out Roberto!
I think the thing I really like about MySQL as a business is that they are up front about their commercial aspirations.
They do x,y and z and it just so happens that z=”make $$ using a dual license approach”. And since x=”build & maintain an active community”, it just feels like a good balance.