Some of the questions made me think about the status of MySQL community. Unlike other free/open source projects, MySQL community people are not direct contributors to the project, but just users. Then there are the more advanced ones who keep an active role, and the majority who are just content to use it and don't even care to participate in blogs or forums.
Seen throrugh the articles in PlanetMySQL, the MySQL community has three components, with sub components:
- Sun/MySQL employees, who link between the noisy users and the company.
- The ones who produce or advocate closed source
- The ones who only deal with open source
- The ones who tell interesting stories without taking sides.
- The interested parties, i.e. the ones who have gained some expertise in MySQL and sell their services or products.
- The positive vibes, who promote their business and contribute constructive criticism
- The negative vibes, who are always complaining about something, trying to weakening MySQL in order to sell their stuff, even when they contribute good technical stuff.
- The enthusiasts, who just write about cool things.
Maybe the distinction is wider, but this is how I see it after browsing planetmysql archives for a while.
I like to collocate myself in the third group. And I am thinking of taking a few notes and write a Whos' who of MySQL community when I have time.
