If you participate at all in the MySQL Meetup circuit, by now it’s likely you’ve heard that the agreement currently in place between Meetup.com and MySQL/Sun is expiring quite soon. Because of that, MySQL Meetups which used to be free for organizers are reverting to paid status very soon (costing the organizer at least $12 per month). MySQL Meetup organizers (like myself) have received an email from Meetup.com giving them 7 days warning. MySQL/Sun have suggested that all MySQL Meetups move to Facebook.

I don’t know all of the details of MySQL and Meetup.com’s prior arrangement for this sponsorship, but from what I gather it did not involve MySQL paying $12 per month for each Meetup—I suspect it was a free/barter agreement. I specifically don’t know Meetup.com’s side of the story; but it doesn’t matter. I feel that Meetup.com has always provided a useful, functional, and fairly priced service. It was nice that it used to be free for MySQL Meetups, but nonetheless it’s a service I’m willing to pay for (and I did, for a few months, before I found out that they could be free).

In fact, I’m willing to do more. I think, given the pittance of a cost involved, it is entirely unnecessarily disruptive to the MySQL community to expect all MySQL Meetups to move to a new service… and I’m going to continue to use Meetup.com for the Silicon Valley MySQL Meetup. Furthermore, I am willing to personally sponsor about 10 other MySQL Meetups around the world.

So, to that end: If you are a MySQL Meetup organizer, and you would prefer to continue using Meetup.com to organize your meetings, please contact me. We can work out the details, and I will pay for a handful of you. Please send me at least the URL to your Meetup, so I can check it out. I’m looking to sponsor interesting and active Meetups, not necessarily idle Meetups that have never actually had a meeting. However, you can be anywhere in the world, and you don’t have to be a particularly large group.

I have been discussing this offer (before publication) with Peter Zaitsev of Percona, and he is willing to sponsor a few MySQL Meetups as well.

Thanks, and have fun meeting up!