Michael Widenius
| Ulf Michael Widenius | |
|---|---|
David Axmark (left) and Michael "Monty" Widenius, 2003
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| Born |
March 3, 1962 Helsinki, Finland |
| Other names | Monty |
| Occupation | Co-Founder of MySQL AB Author of the MySQL Server and MariaDB fork |
| Website | monty-says |
Ulf Michael Widenius (often called Monty; born 3 March 1962, in Helsinki, Finland) is the main author of the original version of the open source MySQL database, a founding member of the MySQL AB company and is currently CTO of the MariaDB Corporation Ab.
After dropping out of Helsinki University of Technology, Widenius started working for Tapio Laakso Oy in 1981. In 1985 he founded TCX DataKonsult AB (a Swedish data warehousing company) with Allan Larsson. In 1995 he began writing the first version of the MySQL database with David Axmark, released in 1996. He is the co-author of the MySQL Reference Manual, published by O'Reilly in June 2002; and in 2003 he was awarded the Finnish Software Entrepreneur of The Year prize.
Until MySQL AB's sale to Sun Microsystems in 2008, he was the chief technical officer of MySQL AB and still one of the primary forces behind the ongoing development of MySQL.
Widenius sold MySQL to Sun in January 2008, earning about €16.6 million in capital gains in 2008 (€16.8 million total income), making the top 10 of highest earners in Finland that year.
On 5 February 2009, he announced that he was leaving Sun in order to create his own company.
On 12 December 2009, Monty asked MySQL customers to lobby the European Commission (EC), regarding Oracle's acquisition of Sun, citing concerns about potential Oracle control of MySQL; this resulted in an online petition campaign called "Save MySQL".
After leaving Sun, he formed Monty Program AB and forked MySQL into MariaDB, named after his youngest daughter, Maria. It includes several patches and plugins developed by the company itself or the community. One of these plugins is Aria storage engine, which was renamed from Maria to avoid confusion with MariaDB. Monty Program AB merged with SkySQL, who later renamed themselves MariaDB Corporation. He is also CTO of the MariaDB Foundation, the non-profit organisation charged with promoting, protecting and advancing the MariaDB codebase, community, and ecosystem.
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