I heard Cory Doctorow about a week ago (yes, we have cool international speakers here in Melbourne all the time!), and if there was only one thing you’re really meant to take away from his talk, I think I found the gem.
Cory signs a book
We’re usually told content is king. He says thats a myth. Have you seen the six trillion dollar industry, that is telecommunications? (okay, I don’t know if that stat is remotely correct…) So the content is king idea is bollocks. What is really king is community and inter-personal communication. Getting people to talk about it. Humans are terribly social beings, so yeah, go community.
“Trying to kill MySQL by acquiring open source is like trying to kill
a dolphin by drinking the ocean.” — Marten Mickos
And yes, that quote ties in well with the Oracle Bought InnoDB Without a Clue article… MySQL has a great community. And of late, we’re getting a lot more great community contributed content. I do think content is important, but the community is too. And being around over 1,500 MySQL users, all I can say is that there’s great community here. From financial analysts, to DBAs, to students, to storage engine creators. This is one damned good community!