Sun MySQL Head Joins EnterpriseDB

Karen Tegan Padir, the head of MySQL development at Sun Microsystems, did not join Oracle when Sun was merged into the database company at the end of February. Instead, she joined another open source database company, EnterpriseDB.

Padir was the figure who, in the midst of Oracle takeover skepticism, stood up and said Oracle had established a record of dealing with open source code communities and projects and MySQL users were going to have to keep their trust in Oracle. That was during the MySQL annual user group meeting in April 2008. Sometime later, as the long takeover process reached its completion, she packed her bags and headed east.

EnterpriseDB is located in Westford, Mass., and Padir's family lives nearby. EnterpriseDB is a commercial product based on the PostgreSQL open source database system, a system that is more ANSI SQL compliant than MySQL. It is one of the oldest open source projects, with a wide body of contributors and committers, but it never achieved the marketplace acceptance of the easier-to-use MySQL.

"Step one will be to broaden its appeal," Padir said in an interview Friday. "Postgres Plus works really well in both a transactions environment and a Web serving environment," she said.

She said EnterpriseDB is increasing its commitment to the open source project by hiring a fifth committer, Robert Haas. EnterpriseDB already employs Bruce Momjian, lead coordinator of the project, and Dave Page, a leading architect and committer.

Padir will be head of engineering and product marketing for EnterpriseDB's Postgres Plus. She formerly headed up Sun's development and marketing of Sun's market-leading identity management server, Glassfish, and other Java middleware as VP of MySQL and software infrastructure at Sun.