The original code of MySQL was written by Monty Widenius back in the 1980s - and although it's been totally rewritten since, the orginal data file format is amongst those still supported. I learnt a great deal of information about the philosophies behind MySQL when I listened to a full day of talks by Monty, his co-founder David Axmark, and Brian Aker of MySQL AB, and I have to say that I was very impressed. Their utter committment to upwards compatability of data is vital (and "you don't have to upgrade unless you want to") as the investment in data becomes the major part of any system. Monty was also describing how they have laid down a target of 15 minutes for new users to be able to install an try out MySQL, and then how they extend that easy-to-use approach right through the product. Add to that release quality control and other features, and MySQL has risen rapidly to become a serious competitor to Oracle. If you need to buy a license (and I now have a much better understanding of when that's necessary), you'll still find that it's going to cost you a lot less than licensing any other database, and the ongoing cost of ownership will be relatively low too due to the easy to install, easy to learn, easy to use, easy to maintain nature of a MySQL database.

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