Incorporation of utPLSQL¶
In August, I wrote on utPLSQL site, that utPLSQL needs a clear vision for its future, and that the project cannot keep going on after-hours goodwill alone. This is the first concrete step in that direction. In August 2026 I incorporated utPLSQL Development Labs Ltd in Cyprus, where I now live, and utPLSQL is moving under its custody.
Before I explain what that means, let me explain how a unit testing framework for PL/SQL ended up needing a company at all.
The history behind utPLSQL¶
utPLSQL started long before I became involved with it. The project has been part of the Oracle and PL/SQL community since the late 1990s, and over the years it has gone through several generations, maintainers, rewrites, changes in technology and changes in the way people build software. There was no product roadmap, management team, budget or organization paying people to keep it moving. There was simply a useful idea, a community around it, and a handful of engineers who cared enough to spend their own time making it happen.
Since 2016, I have been one of the primary people driving the vision of v3 and looking after the project, and I have effectively been its only core leader since mid-2017.
Over the years, countless hours have gone into design and architecture, discussions, writing code, fixing bugs, reviewing pull requests, improving documentation, answering questions, maintaining integrations and keeping the project compatible with a changing ecosystem. There were many authors and contributors who collectively made the utPLSQL v3 framework possible.
Making utPLSQL sustainable¶
For a long time, I was strongly of the opinion that utPLSQL is going to do great and will surely continue as a collection of repositories and a community around them.
As the project matured and became stable, the contributions became less frequent and over time active development slowed. Contributors moved on to other things and the project moved into the stability phase.
The project however became broadly used, and many developers and companies depend on it. Although the project was mature and stable, it also started to age. Questions started to appear that had very little to do with writing or testing PL/SQL code. Is the project alive, is it maintained, who is maintaining it, how can it be reached? Can we rely on the project being available and developed in future?
The project matured, the active contributors moved on with their lives. This consequently led to the impression that the project had been abandoned.
A few years ago, around 2023 I had a conversation with Philipp Salvisberg, where he mentioned the Material for MkDocs project as a potential role model for how utPLSQL could secure its future. Martin Donath, the creator and maintainer of the Material for MkDocs project, demonstrated how sponsorship could provide a sustainable foundation for an open-source project.
Back then I believed that I would be able to continue supporting utPLSQL after hours, while keeping a full-time job and still having reasonable time left to keep myself having a healthy and fulfilled life. Back then I didn’t believe that utPLSQL would need or benefit from sponsorship.
Fast forward to March 2026. I was approached independently by two Oracle ACEs, Philipp Salvisberg and Monika Mitura with questions about maintainability and long-term viability of utPLSQL. By that point, although I remained responsible for the project, active development and contributions had largely stopped.
I was very much occupied with my day-to-day development work and personal life at the time. Those two conversations, however, made me revisit and rethink my previous position about project maintenance.
It is now clear to me that the project needs a maintenance and development plan rather than relying on the goodwill and spare time of a few talented individuals. The project needs dedicated effort to keep it up to date with the latest developments in the database ecosystem and to provide better tooling for test automation, including integrations with AI-assisted development tools, LLMs and MCP.
Today, it is clear to me that the project needs a formal structure and a sustainable source of funding to support its long-term maintenance and development.
That structure should also provide clear answers to questions like: Who signs an agreement with a sponsor, issues an invoice, receives a donation, pays for infrastructure? Who manages the domain names, emails, discussion forums?
utPLSQL Development Labs Ltd¶
utPLSQL is transitioning to utPLSQL Development Labs Ltd as its legal custodian.
The company is not being created to turn existing utPLSQL software into a proprietary solution. utPLSQL remains free and open source, and the existing utPLSQL projects remain available under the Apache 2.0 license.
The company is providing legal infrastructure around the project. The entity can enter into agreements, manage finances, deal with sponsors and supporters, and provide a stable legal home for the project.
This allows the project to establish formal relationships with users, sponsors and supporters through a legal entity without putting that burden and responsibility onto an individual. It also provides a way to gather funding and generate income that can support further project growth and maintenance.
It does not mean that contributors become employees, or that every contribution becomes paid work - contributing to the project remains open to everyone. It means that where there is a need and where funding is available, developers can be paid to spend dedicated time on the project.
Companies depend on Oracle Database and the ecosystem around it; teams use utPLSQL as part of their development and delivery processes; organizations benefit from the tooling without any direct mechanism through which they can contribute back.
I would like to make it possible for companies to give back to utPLSQL.
Sponsorship does not buy ownership of the project or control over its direction; the value of the open-source project is that it is built and sustained by a broader community. Sponsorship is a straightforward way for companies that rely on the software to help sustain the people and infrastructure behind it.
The idea is simple: if utPLSQL is valuable to you, there should be a way for you to help make sure it remains valuable.
Same project, new chapter¶
The utPLSQL project has a lot of history in it. Ideas, discussions, long hours of meetings with developers, code written by people who have long since moved on to other things. Contributors who changed one line of code or fixed one typo in documentation. Users who asked one question or created just one issue, as well as all of those who use the framework without ever raising a question or issue.
All of those people are part of the project's history. The company is not meant to erase that history or replace the community with an organization.
There is plenty I would like to see improved in the future: the framework core, documentation, tooling, better integrations and support for LLMs and MCPs, training and coaching programs and spreading the message about the significance of systematic testing and test automation in the Oracle ecosystem. The incorporation of utPLSQL Development Labs Ltd is a step towards making this possible.
Jacek @utPLSQL