DATABASES

Open source advocates remain concerned over lack of binding commitments 

Oracle has promised a new phase in its custodianship of MySQL following the creation of a lobby group concerned about its future independence and long-term development.

A new governance model, a new steering committee, and support for the MySQL community are among the measures Big Red announced for the open source database whose intellectual property it owns.

However, a co-founder of the OurSQL Foundation – an independent organization claiming to represent the interests of MySQL users and developers – says Oracle has yet to make binding commitments about the database's future governance and management.

In a blog post this week, Oracle said it was "taking the next step" in terms of transparency in MySQL development and engagement with its wider community.

"Our goal is simple: accelerate innovation and contributions, make it easier for the community to participate meaningfully in the evolution of MySQL, and grow the MySQL Ecosystem."

In the "spirit of collaboration," Oracle said it would establish a new governance model in which community members can contribute through code, testing, documentation, reviews, and technical discussions. Experienced contributors can take on extra responsibilities as "committers," Oracle said. They would help review changes and maintain code quality.

"Stronger governance gives the MySQL community clearer ways to participate and accelerate innovation while preserving the quality, security, and compatibility users expect," said Jason Wilcox, senior vice president, Data and AI Platform Services, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The governance model also includes a technical steering committee, which will serve as a forum for strategic guidance and community representation, bringing together perspectives from across the MySQL ecosystem. The initial steering committee will include cloud giants Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Oracle, with additional perspectives from as-yet-unnamed users of MySQL. Microsoft – provider of DBaaS Azure Database for MySQL – is notably absent.

"We are continuing to expand opportunities for engagement through public roadmap discussions, Contributor Summits, GitHub-based collaboration, Early Access releases, technical design conversations, and enhanced developer resources," Oracle said.

The OurSQL Foundation formed in May following a period in which the MySQL community expressed concerns about Oracle's long-term commitment to the database and willingness to open its governance to external contributions.

In September last year, Oracle made "widespread layoffs" across its core MySQL development team. Michael "Monty" Widenius, who co-authored the original MySQL in the 1990s, said the job cuts had left him "heartbroken," but not surprised.

Peter Zaitsev, co-founder of open source consultancy Percona, one of the organizations behind the OurSQL Foundation, welcomed Oracle's new tone and openness around its management of MySQL.

"This is a step and in the right direction," Zaitsev said. "We welcome Oracle engaging the MySQL ecosystem as a whole. For the last nine months, Oracle has shown a desire to show more openness to the community in terms of sharing and including the wider community in the decision-making process. This is all great."

However, the OurSQL Foundation would continue to hold Oracle to account as questions remained about whether its commitment to open governance was binding.

"If you read all those announcements they say, 'we will involve the community in an advisory capacity,' which is of course better than nothing, but it's not really PostgreSQL-type community engagement, where community is really able to plot a path forward for users," he said.

Zaitsev expressed concern that any direction set for MySQL could ultimately be changed by new Oracle management. "There's nothing binding in this regard."

A test of Oracle's determination to live by its commitment would come when the community wants to make changes to the database that Oracle might consider detrimental to its commercial interests. "Would those be accepted?" Zaitsev asked.

Another test would be whether the community was willing to contribute to a system whose future it believed Oracle controlled entirely. ®