Mickos, who became senior vice president of Sun's database group when Sun bought MySQL last year, is just the latest high-profile MySQL figure to depart from Sun.

The database's creator, Michael "Monty" Widenius, said in a blog post Thursday he had resigned due to dissatisfaction with how Sun was handling MySQL development, and several months ago MySQL co-founder David Axmark also left the company, the confining nature of corporate life.

Mickos' duties have been taken over by Sun executive Karen Tegan Padir, who is now vice president of the newly formed . Padir's responsibilities also include the Glassfish application server, identity management, SOA (service oriented architecture), and the Java Enterprise System.

The apparent exodus of MySQL-ites from Sun comes as no great surprise, according to one industry observer.

"For the most part, if a tech person gets a good-to-excellent payout after vesting from the acquisition, they move on to their own thing," said Redmonk analyst Michael Coté. "That's what just about what every techie out there dreams of: getting rich enough to finally be their own boss for the rest of their lives. Any other hassle or big-company friction they encounter just accelerates that."