Silicon.com has an interview with Marten Mickos on MySQL actual mission:

"Officially headquartered in Sweden, the company has grown rapidly to around 160 employees, one-third of whom are in the US with the rest spread out across the world.

Mickos attributed the success of the MySQL database - with five million installations worldwide and 35,000 downloads per day - in part to the fact open-source development inherently creates better products than the proprietary model because "developers take more pride in their work" when it's available for public scrutiny."