Posted on 3 Comments

MySQL principles/values

Did you know that MySQL has stated principles for its products as well as for its employees. It’s a bit more substantial than your average mission statement blah 😉
Every person who once signed up to be an employee of the original MySQL AB essentially also signed for upholding these principles, but perhaps you haven’t seen them. Since it is public info, why not take a peek!

To me personally, both lists have always felt mainly like a written down description of how Monty (MySQL’s original author and co-founder of MySQL AB) likes to work (and I do see that as a positive thing). The product ones get quoted often enough, but not the employee ones, so here’s they are:

We want the people working on MySQL to:

  • Subscribe to the Open Source philosophy
  • Aim to be good citizens
  • Prefer partners that share our values and mindset
  • Answer email and give assistance to users, customers, partners and co-workers
  • Be a virtual organization, networking with others

It’s almost a decade old now, and while I think it still looks pretty good, perhaps you have thoughts for possible improvements to the list? Obviously this is just for me (and perhaps Open Query) since I no longer work for MySQL; but I reckon it never hurts to get some extra perspective, particularly valuing the years of experience on the outside that you will have! So, what do you think? Thanks!

Posted on 3 Comments

3 thoughts on “MySQL principles/values

  1. That is so impressive. That is exactly how I feel I should be working. Since I don’t work in an OSS company, I bite my tongue.

  2. Hrm. I think the “Open Source philosophy” has changed since that was written, so I think they follow older versions, but not current ones (which involve making it easy to give back). Then again, that’s less of an “employee” mentality than an organizational one.

    Definitely answering e-mail and giving assistance is something that is still done to this day, whether partner, paying customer or free customer. And networking is still done, as is a virtual organization.

  3. Obviously the partners-with-shared-values sentiment got lost when they sold out to Sun, otherwise Monty would not be moving on.

    How does one subscribe to the open source philosophy and make big bucks by selling out to a company that doesn’t COMPLETELY ascribe to the same philosophy?

    SELECT * FROM owners WHERE IFNULL(full_integrity, 0)>0;

    No rows found

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