“We will not walk in fear of one another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men.”
-- Edward R. Murrow
When I thought about the content of this post, it came to my mind one of the movies where George Clooney is actor, director and writer. The movie is Good Night and Good Luck, a great snapshot of post-war American history and a great way, in my opinion, to analyse how a modern and democratic society has evolved since then.
On Thursday 30th of September, I resigned from Oracle. I left my role as Sales Engineering Manager in EMEA. I left my team, my colleagues and my friends but, as I said in a goodbye letter, I am taking with me all the friendship and the teaching of the 5 most beautiful years of my working life.
It would take too long to mention all the great moments I had at MySQL/Sun/Oracle - they are far way too many. And I would not name my colleagues either, it is fair to say that all my colleagues have been fantastic, with no exception. Kaj Arno recently posted a great message in his blog and I cannot agree more with his comments and analysis. MySQL, in all its forms, has been a fantastic place to work. And because it has been so fantastic, and in my opinion it still is, I found it is so difficult to leave. When one has experienced such a great time and passionate work, one hardly wants to move to something different. After many years involved in the sales of closed source products, I realised how exciting it is to work in a open source environment, I breathed this sense of openness and fairness. I embraced the culture and a more relaxed approach with users, customers and colleagues, and I did not want to go back to the days of closed source.
MySQL AB and the good old days days of the small company that owned MySQL, animated by the enthusiasm of its employees, customers and users, are over. It has been replaced by a far larger organisation, with more power and more resources, by many other company operating in the MySQL ecosystem and by a wider MySQL Community.
Oracle now has the ability and the resources to bring MySQL into new customers and new environments, in places where MySQL AB could not get in. This ability will serve the MySQL Community and users much better that the capacity of a single, small company. It will make MySQL even more ubiquitous, expanding in different customer-based. I can guess there are some skeptic readers frowning here. Let’s wait and see, time will tell.
If I am so optimistic about the future of MySQL at Oracle, why did I leave? I think that my personal attitude does not fit with large organisation. I believe that Oracle is a fantastic company to work for, but it is not the right place for me, at least not in the form and in the position I was.
What's next for me? I am clearing up and closing all my tasks at the moment. My mind was rumbling with ideas, some of them were crazy, some more conservative. Watch this space, it will be soon time for another post.
Good night, and good luck.
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