Who Works For MySQL?

Peter Gulutzan

First, let's dispense with the notion that MySQL is a troop of Vikings who punch time clocks every day in the MySQL AB head office near Stockholm. Less than 10% of the employees are Swedish nowadays, and both the American and the German contingents outnumber them. Full-time and part-time workers hail from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, India, Mexico, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine. And when you count all the contributors to the open source code, you find representatives from all the world's major countries.

How do all these people manage to work together? That's easy: they use computers! A big part of every day is devoted to communication over the Internet, or on the company's Intranet sites, or by phones, or simply via IRC (Internet Relay Chat) which lets every worker discuss current work issues, or simply discuss, in what is perhaps the most successful example today of the pure "virtual office" concept. Some developers only meet their fellow employees once a year, at employee conferences or at a big show like the MySQL Users' Conference, which usually takes place in the USA (the next one is in Florida in spring 2004).

Division of labour works out like this:
* Marketing and sales people work out from all major market areas in Europe, the USA and Japan. These people have booths at major shows like COMDEX and CeBIT or they handle individual accounts in the major market areas in Europe, the USA, and Japan.
* Trainers are often on the road, either giving seminars at customers' sites or at pre announced gatherings in large cities worldwide.
* Writers, both of documentation and of certification guides or exams, tend to work at home. These include bestselling author Paul DuBois, as well as Stefan Hinz who translated the German manual.
* Developers are spread out. Most work on the front ends (Connector/J, Connector/ODBC, Control Center) goes on in North America, while the largest clusters of server developers are in East European cities you've probably never heard of.
* Supporters, the people who answer the bug reports and pick up the emergency phones for the clients with support plans, work in several time zones. All supporters have been or are still working as developers.
* And last but definitely not least, are the administration staff. They are exceptional, in MySQL terms, because they actually go to an office and work on work days. From the perspective of other employees, they are most appreciated because they do the payroll.

On the other hand, MySQL also is a group of volunteers. A significant percentage of the paid workers started off by fixing bugs or adding whole modules to the package. There are, though it's difficult to count, thousands of people who in one way or another have helped. Of course, they are really helping themselves and their communities, since anyone can benefit from the product.

Summary: MySQL is an international open source company. It may be the world's largest "virtual office" firm. It has a full-time staff of sellers, trainers, writers, developers, and administrators. It makes money, it makes a product and it makes people happy.