Many longtime MySQL contributors, engineers, and ecosystem leaders are coming together to voice support for establishing a vendor-neutral foundation for the MySQL ecosystem. In an open letter to Oracle, these experts urge the formation of a vendor-neutral, nonprofit foundation for MySQL that would serve as a shared home for the ecosystem, independent of any single company’s commercial interests.
The letter—which has more than 400 signatories as of this writing, including many former Oracle contributors and database leaders across the industry—outlines growing concerns around governance, transparency, contribution barriers, and long-term sustainability. It proposes three potential governance models designed to strengthen MySQL’s future while explicitly recognizing Oracle’s ownership of the software and trademark.
These suggested governance models include an Oracle-Led Governance Model (OpenELA Model). This model has Oracle take the lead in establishing the trade association, following the approach and structure that worked for OpenELA.
The next one is the Collaborative Partnership and Licensing Model. This model has the broader industry establish the foundation, with Oracle participating as a principal board member and strategic partner.
And finally, the Independent Ecosystem Development Model involves the community independently organizing a trade association dedicated to advocacy and evangelism.
Vadim Tkachenko (co-founder and CTO of Percona, technology fellow, and co-author of High Performance MySQL) has worked with MySQL for decades, and Percona has long advocated for a stronger, more transparent MySQL ecosystem, previously calling for improvements in MySQL’s stewardship and community infrastructure.
Percona is recognized as a world-class, open source database software, support, and services company for MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Valkey, and Redis databases in on-premises and cloud environments. Percona is dedicated to helping make databases and applications run better through a unique combination of expertise and open source software.
What are the concerns and technical and governance issues facing MySQL today?
Today’s concerns around MySQL center on a lack of transparency, shifting resources, and centralized control. From a technical standpoint, innovation has slowed in the open source core, with MySQL being the only major database software lacking native vector search. Development largely happens in private via “code drops,” and security bugs are not tracked publicly. Furthermore, there has been too much focus on operational features at the expense of developer functionality. From a governance perspective, decision making and the project road map are controlled by Oracle, with only contributions that “fit” their internal goals being accepted. While Oracle recently introduced a new executive chain promising more transparency, the community remains skeptical due to recent deep cuts—roughly 50% of the MySQL staff was let go to match headcount to revenue.
What are the three potential governance models leaders are asking Oracle to consider for MySQL?
The community has outlined three constructive governance pathways, mapped out in a proposal document sent to Oracle. The first is the OpenELA approach, in which Oracle leads. This would entail Oracle setting up a trade association and inviting other major tech giants as founding members.
This allows Oracle to remain in the driver’s seat while sharing the ecosystem’s maintenance workload.
The second is a partnership model, in which the wider industry forms a foundation, and Oracle joins as a top-tier board member. Crucially, this agreement would allow the association to use the “MySQL” name for advocacy.
Lastly is the independent growth model. The community would organize the trade association completely independently to focus purely on advocacy, evangelism, and keeping Oracle accountable to its commitments.
What does fragmentation mean for users, contributors, and enterprises?
By some counts, there are now roughly a dozen meaningful forks or variants in circulation. While this demonstrates continued demand for MySQL-compatible technology, it also creates confusion and compatibility challenges. Forks are not always fully compatible with each other or with upstream, complicating migrations, upgrades, and operational standardization.
For enterprises, this increases risk and cost. For contributors, it disperses engineering effort. Rather than accelerating the ecosystem forward cohesively, fragmentation can weaken the shared innovation engine that once defined MySQL.
How can different foundation models benefit the broader database landscape?
A well-structured foundation provides a vendor-neutral, community-driven space to support tools and the wider ecosystem. It allows the community to pool resources to effectively promote MySQL and drive adoption. It also creates a unified entity capable of securing endorsements and support from major players such as AWS, Google, and Microsoft. By coordinating patches, features, and community efforts under one roof, the foundation becomes a much more compelling partner for Oracle to engage with.
How can Percona help MySQL users during this time?
Percona is both a technical provider and an advocate for sustainable open source governance. On the operational side, Percona offers enterprise-grade support, consulting, and enhanced MySQL-compatible distributions to help organizations maintain performance, security, and stability regardless of upstream uncertainty.
On the ecosystem side, Percona actively participated in drafting the open letter and is working to facilitate constructive dialogue around governance. Percona has 15 years of experience maintaining tracking forks, providing them with the technical discipline required to navigate complex upstream changes.
How does this moment represent an inflection point for one of the most widely deployed databases in the world?
This is an inflection point because the questions are no longer quiet or isolated—they are coordinated and public. Enterprises are increasingly wary of lock-in, opaque road maps, pricing power, and supportability concerns. At the same time, cloud providers have indicated a willingness to invest more deeply if governance becomes clearer.
The ecosystem stands at a crossroads: continue with growing fragmentation and uncertainty or modernize governance to stabilize and revitalize MySQL’s trajectory. The intent of the open letter is not to push enterprises away from MySQL, but to stop the “bleeding” and ensure that MySQL, or a clearly aligned MySQL-compatible future, remains a strong database of choice for new deployments.