Dear Oracle, we need to talk about the future of MySQL

MySQL users demand independent governance

A coalition of MySQL developers and users officially invited Oracle to help establish an independent, nonprofit foundation to govern the open-source database. The group sent an open letter to the tech giant requesting a collaborative transition toward a vendor-neutral model. Approximately 100 signatories have already backed the initiative, including major contributors and third-party service providers.

The group aims to move MySQL governance away from a single corporate entity to ensure the software remains competitive. They argue that a foundation would provide a shared home for the ecosystem that remains independent of any single company’s commercial interests. This move follows years of growing tension between Oracle and the community that relies on the database.

Vadim Tkachenko, the CTO of open-source consultancy Percona, acts as a primary spokesperson for the coalition. Tkachenko previously worked for MySQL AB, the original Swedish company that developed the database. He and his colleagues believe the current management structure prevents the project from evolving alongside modern technical requirements.

Oracle faces a March deadline

The coalition set a deadline for the end of March for Oracle to respond to the proposal. If Oracle ignores the invitation or refuses to participate, the group plans to move forward with the foundation independently. Tkachenko stated that the community wants to give Oracle space to consider the offer before taking further action.

The risk of irrelevance drives this sense of urgency among long-time contributors. Every quarter that passes without significant changes to governance increases the gap between MySQL and its competitors. The group believes they no longer have the luxury of waiting for Oracle to fix internal management issues on its own timeline.

Oracle acquired MySQL when it purchased Sun Microsystems for $7.4 billion in 2009. Since then, the community has frequently clashed with the database giant over the direction of the software. While Oracle maintains the MySQL Community Edition, critics argue the company focuses its best engineering efforts on proprietary cloud features.

Transparency issues plague the project

The open letter outlines several systemic problems regarding how Oracle manages the MySQL codebase. Development currently happens behind closed doors, with Oracle releasing "private code drops" rather than engaging in open collaboration. This process provides the community with zero visibility into the product roadmap or the reasoning behind specific technical decisions.

Security tracking has also become a major point of contention for enterprise users. The coalition claims that security-related bugs are no longer tracked in a public, transparent manner. This shift leaves users unable to verify if known vulnerabilities affect their specific installations or if Oracle has addressed them in the latest builds.

The group identified several specific areas where MySQL is falling behind modern industry standards:

• Vector search: MySQL lacks native support for vector search, which is essential for modern AI and machine learning applications.
• Opaque contributions: While the community can technically contribute code, the process is described as frustrating and non-transparent.
• Feature disparity: Oracle prioritizes its proprietary HeatWave engine over features that would benefit the broader open-source community.
• Aging workforce: The project struggles to attract younger developers, students, and new professionals to its core development team.

Competition from PostgreSQL grows stronger

The decline of MySQL’s market share among new developers remains a primary concern for the coalition. PostgreSQL has become the preferred choice for startups and younger engineers who value its open governance model. The group argues that PostgreSQL’s "even playing field" for vendors makes it more attractive for long-term investment.

Peter Zaitsev, co-founder of Percona, noted that the mysql.com website currently features only Oracle-related products and services. In contrast, the PostgreSQL ecosystem highlights a diverse range of vendors and contributors. This lack of visibility for third-party innovators makes it difficult for the MySQL ecosystem to thrive outside of Oracle’s shadow.

The LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl) once dominated the internet, but that dominance is fading. As developers move toward modern cloud-native architectures, they are increasingly abandoning MySQL for databases with more active, transparent communities. The coalition believes only an independent foundation can reverse this trend and make MySQL a "first-class citizen" for new projects again.

Internal chaos at Oracle MySQL

Oracle recently attempted to address these concerns by promising a "decisive new approach" to the database. Frederic Descamps, who served as Oracle’s MySQL community manager, recently posted about a "new era of community engagement." He promised that Oracle would introduce more developer-focused features into the Community Edition and expand its toolset.

However, the coalition remains skeptical of these promises due to recent leadership changes. Shortly after making those promises, Descamps announced he was leaving Oracle to join the MariaDB Foundation. MariaDB is a popular fork of MySQL created by the database’s original founder, Michael "Monty" Widenius.

Tkachenko described the internal state of the Oracle MySQL team as "in chaos." He claimed that Oracle has not yet appointed a vice president to lead MySQL development following recent departures. This lack of stable leadership makes it difficult for the community to trust Oracle’s long-term commitments to the open-source version of the software.

Accountability through a neutral body

The proposed foundation would serve as a mechanism to keep Oracle accountable for its promises. Zaitsev argued that a single, unified voice is necessary to tell Oracle when its performance fails to meet community expectations. Without an independent organization, individual developers have little leverage against a multi-billion dollar corporation.

The coalition wants to see a wide variety of companies invited back into the development process. By creating a vendor-neutral space, they hope to encourage other tech firms to contribute resources and engineering talent to the project. This model has proven successful for other major open-source projects like Kubernetes and the Linux kernel.

Last year, Widenius expressed his disappointment over reported job losses within Oracle’s MySQL engineering team. Data shows a significant drop in the number of code commits to the project over the last several years. The coalition believes that unless governance changes, the software will continue to stagnate while the rest of the industry moves toward more collaborative models.

Oracle has not yet issued a formal comment on the letter or the proposed foundation. The tech community is now watching to see if the company will engage with the coalition or allow the March deadline to pass without a response. The outcome will likely determine whether MySQL remains a dominant force in the database market or becomes a legacy technology maintained by a single vendor.