From the ‘not everyone is happy at Sun (though lots are)‘ files:
PORTLAND. Sun has been supporting the PostgreSQL database since at least November of 2005, a few months later they hired Josh Berkus.PostgreSQL core team member as PostgreSQL Lead for Sun’s Database Technology Group.
Since then a lot has happened at Sun, notably they bought rival open source database MySQL for $1 billion. So now six months after the MySQL acquisition and two years after joining Sun, Berkus is leaving.
I’ve had the good fortune to meet up with Berkus to talk about his experience at Sun and why he’s leaving.
“Obviously Sun acquiring MySQL was not really encouraging to me,” Berkus told InternetNews.com. “It meant PostgreSQL being number two to MySQL within Sun. So it’s just not a real exciting atmosphere for a PostgreSQL guy.”
Berkus also told me that there was a larger issue for him as well which dealt with the reasons why he joined Sun in the first place. He alleged that Sun just isn’t doing big and exciting things as they’re focussed on revenue in the database division and that’s what Sun needs to do.
“It’s good for Sun to sell support for PostgreSQL but that’s good for Sun,” Berkus said. “I really went into Sun in the first place because Sun has a very large core of high end engineers who really had the opportunity to take PostgreSQL to a bigger scale and do some interesting things with it that we hadn’t classically done in the open source community.”
I asked Sun spokesperson Terri Molini about Berkus leaving Sun and she said that she wished Berkus the best of luck in his future endeavors.
Berkus isn’t yet certain what those future endeavors may be, though he told me he is entertaining some offers.
On an interestign side note, at a Sun party at OSCON on Wednesday night, Berkus actually literally wrestled with MySQL founder Monty Widenius (you know those big Sumo puff things) with a large crowd of spectators cheering them both on. Who ever said geeks can’t be physical?
