MySQL co-founder quits Sun

In a posting on his blog Widenius confirmed rumours that he was intent on leaving the company last year, around the time MySQL’s other co-founder quit.

However he said he was persuaded to stay by Sun management to stay for three months and fix problems with MySQL 5.1.

“The three months did stretch out to seven months, and the changes I had hoped Sun would apply to in the MySQL Database group to fix our development and community problems did not happen fast enough,” he said.

“Sun and I concluded in the end that I have much higher chances of achieving my goals outside of Sun, so it's just better to swallow the bitter apple, go out and get things going. We parted in good terms and we both expect to continue to do business and work together.”

Widenius is now splitting his time between two new ventures. The first is a software house called Monty Program Ab, which aims to be a truly open source software house owned and run by around 30-40 employees.

The new company will work with Sun in developing software for the MySQL-5.1-Maria tree and will include some existing members of Sun’s Maria team.

In addition the company will write bespoke software for MySQL for specific customers.

Secondly Widenius plans to open a restaurant that uses databases of customers to provide a better service. Details will be announced later by he confirmed it will offer discounts for database programmers.

Finally said he would also be ploughing some of his own money into providing venture capital for start-ups in disruptive technology.