Ten Questions to Martin Mikos

Guy Kawasaki's interview with MySQL AB CEO Marten Mikos.
Martin Mikos became the CEO of MySQL AB in 2001. Under his leadership, the company has grown from a startup to the second largest company that produces open source products and the fastest growing database provider. Before joining MySQL, Mikos held senior positions in various companies in his native Finland. He is a graduate of the Helsinki University of Technology, a Master of Technical Physics.

The interview was taken on August 24, 2006.
How do you make money on an open source product?
We started not with making money. We started by creating a user community. The vast community of MySQL users and developers is what drives our business.
We sell a solution for businesses to companies that need scalability and who cannot afford to fail. This solution includes certified binaries, updates, automated database administration services, 24-hour technical support, etc. You pay for the level of service and the number of servers. No complicated payment schemes. Companies that buy software are tired of complex pricing models (for the core, for the processor, for the power device, for one user, for anything that the vendor thinks about), which are still running.
In MySQL, we LOVE users who do not pay us any money. They are our evangelists. No marketing would have done for us what a passionate MySQL user does about MySQL to his friends and colleagues. Our success is based on these millions of evangelists around the world. Of course, they also help us develop the product and fix bugs.
Even when someone tells us that he hates MySQL, this usually also helps us, because the complaints contain useful suggestions for improvement.
What changes have occurred in the open source community since you decided to “build a company” around MySQL?
Interestingly, MySQL has always been a company. When Monty and David (Michael "Monty" Widenius and David Aksmark - comment re.) Founded it, from the very beginning they combined a commitment to open source code and commercial success. They did not build the business themselves, but set a direction for it.
Therefore, we have always tried to combine the best aspects of the business approach with the advantages of free open source software. It happened that we dodged in one direction or another, and then we had to adjust the course.
Too many open source supporters are inspired by the fact that we make money from it. They are proud that open source penetrates the corporate world.
Are you competing with Oracle, or do you have different clients with them?
Most new companies and new projects in existing companies choose open source infrastructure, for example, LAMP. We do not see competition here.
We focus on new applications and services that are built online: Web 2.0, SaaS (software as a web service), and SOA (service-oriented architecture), as well as new forms of data warehousing and business applications. Our users need reliability, performance, scalability and ease of deployment. They do not need complex systems that require days and weeks to set up and launch, as well as subsequent maintenance costs.
That's why YouTube, Craigslist, Flickr, Habbo Hotel, LiveJournal, Technorati, Second Life, Trulia, FeedBurner, and Right Now are all our customers, not Oracle customers. We believe that our chosen market is the fastest growing segment in the database market.
What is the largest MySQL database?
It's like asking what is the biggest Ferrari! We must look at the performance and scalability. Omniture has more than 250 billion transactions per quarter on MySQL servers. Google uses MySQL for AdSense and AdWords. Other major installations include Wikipedia, Travelocity, Weather.com. There are databases containing hundreds of gigabytes. Some sites use hundreds of servers, even thousands.
Where is MySQL used in the most unusual way?
I wish I knew! MySQL was used on a server on Earth supporting the rover. Special effects in “The Lord of the Rings” were created using MySQL. Hot or Not runs on MySQL. Even the Oracle FAQ is built on MySQL.
What is the most “critical" use of MySQL?
I hope that my words will not sound like megalomania, but so much of the online world works on MySQL today that it’s hard to single out one person. Google and Yahoo have critical applications on MySQL. Nokia and Alcatel are building a mobile telephony network on MySQL. MySQL was used in systems designed to work in emergency situations, for example, during the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina.
How does the company control what happens to its product in the conditions when programming and testing is carried out by the open source community?
All successful open source products are managed by quite small groups of developers involved in the project for a long time. This happens with Apache, Linux, JBoss and others. The same is true for MySQL, but in our case most of the developers are MySQL employees. This group makes key decisions. At the same time, we very carefully listen to the whole community, because if the community is not satisfied, alternative versions of the product will appear, or users will switch to other databases.
Is the community holding back innovation? It is one thing to debug an existing product, quite another to design a new one.
On the contrary, I think that the principle of complicity embedded in the open source philosophy is an excellent innovative method. It is not limited to software - look at Wikipedia. (Or on Khabarakhabr :) - comment of translation.). It just so happened that it was the software developers who were the first to use it in the modern world.
The simple fact that everything you have created is open to everyone’s closest scrutiny is the strongest incentive to create a good product from the very beginning. Open source meritocracy - the community leads to fast and at the same time the best innovations. It’s like Darwin’s evolution when the best solutions emerge over time.
Look at the leading company in the database market. They have 50,000 paid employees who work hard to keep the product competitive. We have 50 thousand downloads per day. This means that 50 thousand people every day start to mess with our product. These people have ideas, suggestions, praises, complaints, and although not every one of them sends us letters every day, interesting considerations make their way and get to our team. This is why an open source project is more innovative and moves faster than a closed project.
Who corrects most of the errors?
Our team. In fact, you can see for yourself the statistics . The list of errors and people working on them is open to the public. Errors are also corrected by our commercial partners and users. I want to hope that someday they will correct more mistakes than we do. The point is also that it takes time to study the organization of this process.
No less important than the correction of errors, a message about them with sufficient details. Since our code is open, users send very detailed error messages, even indicating where the error may be. The value of this is difficult for us to overestimate. Here is an example of a very useful error report sent by the user. (Everywhere our people! And the MySQL employee who sent the report, and trying to reproduce the error, is Russian. - Note.)
If MySQL ceases to exist as an organization, will MySQL continue as a product?
Programs exist much longer for the companies that spawned them. In the past, in such cases, users had to require the provision of source code, but now, with open source, users are not tied to a supplier or platform.
MySQL source code is licensed under the GPL, so anyone can create an alternative version or pick up a torch from us. Alternative versions appear very, very rarely, but this is a good way to control the supplier. If MySQL suddenly starts developing the product in the wrong direction and it ceases to be competitive, the community will take over management.
What happens if a closed company crashes? I think that from the users there is an increasing pressure on manufacturers, prompting the latter to move to open source. Take a look at Solaris. Therefore, I believe that all DBMS will eventually be transferred to open source.
What keeps you awake at night?
I fear that we will fall into the trap of our own success and forget about the need to constantly change. Our company has such a strong and specific culture that sometimes, without even realizing the problem, we simply say “this is not our way,” and thus we miss the new opportunities that are opening up.
I am concerned about software patents. This is a big mistake on the part of society - to assume that patents will be as favorable for software as for ordinary goods. Software patents stifle innovation, and someday we may get into a very unpleasant conflict because of this.
But I do not care about the current gorilla market DBMS, if you had in mind that. They take a variety of actions: zero prices, the purchase of open source companies, an even greater attachment to users, but all this does not work. I believe that rationality triumphs in any market over time.
In addition, I do not sleep at night, because I have to hold teleconferences between Europe and Asia!