Ann Schlemmer on Percona’s Open Source Leadership at OSS Seattle 2024

This is Textron tv. Hey everybody. Mitch Ashley here at, at the Open Source Summit in Seattle, Washington, day three for us.

We had a lot of fun talking with great people, and we have another great person lined up to chat with Ann Sch slammer, who is CEO of Perona. Welcome. Thank you.

Nice to, did I say that right? Absolutely. Okay.

Thank you, Bert. I'm glad I got it right. You can do well.

Um, well first tell folks about Perona and, and, uh, I, you probably know what A CEO does with the company, but, uh, sometimes I have to have folks explain that, but tell us about Sure. Perona, we're, um, we're an open source database company. We have been around for 17 years, and the technologies that we work with are my sql, MongoDB, and Postgres.

We have distributions in all of those that are freely available, open source, and then we have services around them. I had the good fortune of taking over for our founder, Peter Zeev in, uh, October of 2022. So It's the name we might have heard of.

Yeah, yep. Uh, an opinion you have heard of too, that he likes to give out. Um, so I, I've taken over the running of the operations of the company, basically.

It's nice a CEO, but gotta Let him do what he wants to do. Right? That's right.

And he's still, he is still an advisor and still, right. Um, he and I are in constant communication, but he's stepped away from the operations, and so that's what, that's what I've been doing. Yeah.

Great. Yeah. So folks that may not know, um, you know, database, open source database technology, when you say you work, you've work with MySQL and Mongo, and how does that, how does that work?

Um, when you say you work with those technologies? So we have, uh, drop-in replacements for Mongo and, um, mice ql. And then we also have our own distribution of Postgres, which is a little bit different.

Oh Boy. I started on Postgres long ago. Yeah.

Before there was sql, it was Quell. There You go. That's A Long time ago.

It's been a while. Yeah. But we, um, put out enterprise features that are freely available.

So that's where our, our differentiation is Kind of take it to that level. That's Right. So, um, when Feeders started the company with Vadim Chenko, it felt customers were getting maybe ripped off that the goodness was behind the paywall.

Mm-Hmm. So, um, we felt true to that. Um, our mission is, open world is a better world Mm-Hmm.

And how do we help people innovate so we have It really believing in that full open model versus, you know, yeah. We're mostly open. Right, right.

We are, you know, I will, you know, my head of sales might not always agree. He is like, it's really hard when we give away all of our softwares. Mm-Hmm.

But we give value with our services. So it's really a overall solution, just talking to, talking to what our, what our customers need and want. Um, um, I'll quote Peter years ago, he said, we prefer to lock 'em in with love.

Mm-Hmm. Said, right. That we're adding, adding value to people know what we're doing.

And so yeah. That's how we work with folks. Our, uh, our CEO says, I'd rather have volunteers than prisoners.

That's another way to say it. Yes. Peter has colorful language like that.

You feel some people are hostages supposedly here. No way's, right? Yeah, exactly.

So you have some big news. Tell us what the News you do. Yeah, so we, uh, announced, um, on Tuesday that we were part of valki and we are gonna be contributing there, so, wow.

Big, right? Mm-Hmm. Um, opportunity came knocking and I opened that door.

Very said, here we are. It's, it's perfect compliment. Choose That a little bit apart.

So participating with what, what, what kind of things might we see coming from that Relationship? Well, we put out that we will be putting out a, a commercial support, we'll, we'll support folks that are on the Val Q project, but as we build it out, we will be having a contributor. Um, that's part of the Okay.

That's part of the team. Um, and really what we're bringing to the table that might be a little different is we know all the other sponsors are globally known. I would love Perona to be as globally known as those others as well.

Uh, but we'll be working on if folks maybe are on-prem as a not in the cloud. Mm. Um, and need to have supported software.

Mm-Hmm. Uh, and but also, again, living our mission of, of, of open and, and being part of an open source project, uh, for the community. Yeah.

Well, well, So help folks understand. Why is that a big deal that, that in this announcement that you're participating without It's a big deal because it's for, for, for Kona, it's us living our values and what we have said that we believe that there's a way to monetize. And we, I am a for-profit company, I believe in profiting.

You don't have to pay the bills have to. Absolutely. And you can do that in a way and still have open source and still have, have that open.

Um, yeah. That ability to have your software and not have to be locked in. And also it's, for us, it's really important on that trust and that contract that we've made with, with the license.

Right. Mm-Hmm. If you put something out there as a license, I think that that's one of the things that concerns me and upsets me is when it's feels like a bait and switch.

Mm-Hmm. Or maybe it doesn't even feel that way. It is a bait and switch.

And that's concerning for the overall open source ecosystem that people are relying on that commitment or that trust that was put out that, Hey, use it. Here's the, here's the governance behind it, here's the license, and then it gets changed. That's right.

That's which is happened a few times. More than a few times. You're think, right?

That's right. That's right. And, and I look at it and say, well, what, I'm not in those boardrooms.

I'm not in those executive sessions. What are you solving a business problem? What, and what is it and is that the right way to go about it?

Um, I don't believe that's the right way to go about it. Mm-Hmm. So something certainly has changed in their business.

Right, that's right. Just to make that That's right. That significant of the change.

That's right. You mentioned kind of being, being, um, there with other kind of maybe bigger or better known, well-known kind of players. I would think that you would stand out in a good way by, by working with, you know, other technology companies give your model is so different than what there is and easy to recognize the value of that.

Right. So That's right. And I think it's also us leveraging our reputation Mm-Hmm.

That we have built and we've been consistent with. And it's a great, be careful with the word partnership, but it is that, it's that collaboration Yes. Collaboration partner.

It is really, it's, yeah. Right. So it's how do you cooperate and, and compete at the same time?

Mm-Hmm. That's the nature of, I think it's the beauty of open source and it's, it's our world In many, Many ways. That's right.

That's exactly right. There Used be coopetition was sort of a unique thing, but That's right. Yeah.

Now it's, you know, that's more the default than the extent that's That's right. And all of us have the opportunity to provide value and answer, answer a problem. Right.

Solve a problem that folks may have and do it a u unique way. Mm-Hmm. And it's not always a one size fits all.

Mm-Hmm. And, and that's okay. That's okay.

Very good. So, um, the Kona work and folks, check out all the things that you do. com from there, there's a lot of thought leadership.

Our blog has a lot of content that we also put out. Our, our folks are always talking about different topics and, um, information that way. So, and we also have forms as well.

com and you'll, you'll find all the goodness. Good. I, and I was thinking you could tell me if this, this is a right guess, but I'm guessing when people reach out or, you know, read blogs or, or participate in the community Yeah.

There's checking it out. But also, I bet they've come there with some challenge that they're, Oh, absolutely, I need some help. Is this something you can That Yep.

And that is usually, that is usually the case that, that and tends to be how people find us. They will find us when they're Googling. Yeah.

When they're looking for, they're doing a search. Chances are they're gonna find our blog first, because we've already written about it. We talked about what that problem is and, and how to help you solve whatever that might be.

Um, so yeah, they usually, people are coming because sometimes their hair is on fire and we would like to, we'd like to end that situation. They running that ride, just barely headed that fire. That's, yeah.

We'd like to prevent fires, but we know that they happen. Very good. Well, Ann Schlemmer, who's, uh, CEO for fun, pleasure talking with you.

Likewise. And congratulations on the great news. Thank you.

You bet. We'll be back. I think we've got another interview or so, uh, to do while we're here at the Open Source summit.

And, you know, we're so appreciated to Anne and, and other folks that have joined us to share their story and what good news, what kind of things are happening here. So check out the other, uh, interviews that we've recorded have available on Textron tv, and we'll be back in just a minute. Big.