Slashdot Mirror
MySQL's Creator On Why the Future Belongs To MariaDB
angry tapir writes "When Oracle purchased Sun, many in the open source community were bleak about the future of MySQL. According to MySQL co-creator Michael "Monty" Widenius, these fears have been proven by Oracle's attitude to MySQL and its community. In the wake of the Sun takeover, Monty forked MySQL to create MariaDB, which has picked up momentum (being included by default in Fedora, Open SUSE and, most recently, Slackware). I recently interviewed Monty about what he learned from the MySQL experience and the current state of MariaDB."
That will show them, huh?
MariaDB is for lamers. Informix is where it's at.
Arch Linux also made the switch three days ago: https://www.archlinux.org/news/mariadb-replaces-mysql-in-repositories/
Personally I think the future belongs to Postgres. :)
why not just use postgres?
jeez
Oracle is now behaving like Monty's old company MySQL AB, trying to force volume users to pay to play. Remember MySQL AB's rigid enforcement of the GPL, with a dual licensing option? I wonder if MariaDB is subject to the same type of licensing games.
Why is it named "Maria" DB? She only provided access to herself for money (well, Mary, same thing). Why not "Jesus" DB, at least he saved?
You can't handle the truth.
Nice dream.
The part he left unsaid was "MariaDB is the future because that's where I will make my money".
Remember, this is the guy that tried to get a merger court to give him the rights to MySQL back again after he sold them to Sun for a nice sum of money.
Citation?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Because everyone in the open source community has this insufferable "Me, too!" attitude, resulting in half a dozen needlessly duplicative efforts.
I would like to know what specifically Oracle is doing so badly. I've been watching MySQL for a while as we use it at work, and it seems that a lot of advancements have been made in MySQL since the Oracle takeover. They've released 5.5 and 5.6. They haven't let it stagnate. They've released a ton of new features. They still have the free version easily available on their website. It seems like their prices have gone up if you want the supported version, but there are other providers out there.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Why isn't there an audio of this interview? This should be routine now. While I appreciate efforts to provide this dialogue, I hope the author(s) don't expect that folks will always want to read through all the verbiage.
I would have been able to listen to the interview while on my way to work. But thanks anyway and sorry, I had to get this off my chest.
From TFA: "Some of the new code by Oracle is surprisingly good, but unfortunately the quality varies and a notable part needs to be rewritten before we can include it in MariaDB"
Uh... considering the utter and total lack of quality surrounding MySQL for years (much of it written by this guy), and considering that Oracle has engineered incredibly reliable and extensible enterprise databases, I don't know where the "surprise" comes from. You can hate on Oracle for being evil, and I agree that they are a lot of the time, but you can also bet that they have a whole lot of very smart people who know how to implement a database. Keep in mind, while I don't trust Oracle, they did release all of this code under an open source license for the Maria people to use(or in this case, criticize in the same way the pot criticizes the kettle).
The part he left unsaid was "MariaDB is the future because that's where I will make my money".
Except that he put a lot of effort and money into organizing a team of developers for the last four years. Just compare what's going on in Oracle's land vs this fork.
It's another case of OpenOffice vs LibreOffice.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
http://monty-says.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html
http://monty-says.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/help-keep-internet-free.html
http://monty-says.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/importance-of-license-model-of-mysql-or.html
why not just use postgres?
jeez
Many providers don't offer this in their cheap standard package. That's a major problem for Postgres I think. Then many popular webapps like Wordpress or Magento are mysql only, and I don't think it will happen soon that they will work with Postgres. Oh and if they did, most of their plugins won't work, so nobody will make the move.
Without the GPL, Mariadb would not exist.
Oracles purchased of MySQL never made sense: A popular but very lightweight database? I once used it on an enterprise project and it was too buggy and had terrible locking and reliability problems. If your database is down you're losing lots of money - we lost $50K an hour. InnoDB helped a bit, but in the end we found it MySQL unworkable and moved to PostgreSQL. Oracle is an enterprise company which makes kazillions selling enterprise software to, you know, enterprises. Maybe some ill-informed executive thought they could use MySQL to target the low-end of the market, but eventually realised MySQL just wasn't up to the task and *that* is why they abandoned it.
I believe he is referring to the efforts to divest the MySQL trademark and copyright from Oracle as a condition of the acquisition of Sun by Oracle by EU courts. Not very nefarious as it was under the assumption that Oracle would destroy MySQLs viability in the future.
The more interesting part of that whole issue was when you look at how the US pressured the EU court to approve the merger unconditionally.
"Although MySQL is still widely used — Db-engines.com ranks it as the third most popular RDBMS after Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, compared to MariaDB coming in at #35 — "
They should had read their methodology before citing them wrong. It is not what is more used (as mysql is basically the default db used by most popular web apps, should be more in the order of popularity of php than in the oracle, like it or not) but what have more active discussion around in certain circles. Even if you think that that measurement "matters" they are talking about "most popular RDBMS" and in the list of RDBMS (not general DBs) MariaDB is #17 (and as mostly transparent replacement of mysql, probably should be in reality between the top 10)
Rather than actually discuss an obvious failing of open source communities at large--a failing that applies directly to commonly-used databases--let's just suppress the opinion. There ya go!
Although (irrespective if we believe the specific numbers or not) ~1% of desktop users are Linux users, I think that 1% is a very significant one containing much of the people doing community contributions to open source projects (either patches or good bug reports). Because of this, I think the fate of the two ex-Sun projects OpenOffice and MySQL is very uncertain, despite having a massively higher user share thanks to MacOSX and Windows users and an established brand. Long-term, I think the developer mind share is more significant and that is obtained by being the default option in various Linux distros.
Founder and head of software project claims the future belongs to them. News at 11.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Everyone wants Mongo and Redis and all that jazz these days anyway...and quite frankly, they ARE better for web applications.
I predict MySQL/MariaDB/whatever will slowly fall out of favor in the next few years.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
The only thing Oracle is doing wrong is thinking that no one could be bold enough to try and sell the same product twice.
It's a gutsy move. It really is. Sell MySQL to Sun. Claim Sun's purchaser is doing __________ (fill in the blank with whatever evil nasty thing you like) with it. But that's ok, MariaDB will save you from that. Distributions flood to it to get away from the nasty big evil corporation, and suddenly Monty has legally taken back control of what he sold for a cool billion dollars.
The best part about it, is if Oracle says anything about it, then it just looks like they are trying to trash talk the little guy who is just trying to do the right thing for
the community.
And before you think of flaming the idea, remember, Monty is very much the businessman. He almost invented using the GPL as a weapon. He stopped releasing any connector or client licensed as LGPL so he could claim that even using MySQL as a back-end for something else required the entire front-end to be GPLed too - either that or pay him for a commercial license.
The next company to buy something from Monty better get an iron clad agreement never to fork it.
Yes, it is. In this case, we have two different projects that are both hard at work on inventing the wheel. We all know exactly how we want the wheel to work, but because we're dividing our efforts we're getting two wheels that work very similarly, and aren't truly interchangeable.
A SQL database is meant to store and retrieve data in a very specific way, and do those tasks as quickly and reliably as possible. The mathematics that define how best to accomplish these goals is a common factor. So why the hell do we have two independent projects chasing those goals?
You tell me: what is the benefit? (And don't start spouting terms "monoculture," because that's baloney. This isn't a biological ecosystem we're talking about here, and even if you use that term, Apache proved it wasn't a problem a long time ago.)
It seems nobody here has mentioned firbirdsql as a nice replacement, its license lets you use it on commercial products is pretty versatile.
You can access database in the typical client/server way or embedded (more similar to sqlite)
Anyone that requires a RDBM should check it out: http://www.firebirdsql.org/
so OpenOffice and MySQL are withering on the vine, while LibreOffice and MariaSQL are moving forward nicely.
similar to what happened with xfree86 and X.ORG.
If your project is run by a bunch of jerks that don't listen to the community, no surprise when they go over your head, fork the program, and leave you in the dust.
So Monty with a dozen old cronies versus 200 plus developers under Oracle mgmt. Monty makes better FUD than code.
Seriously, how do you post an article about a software project, INTERVIEWING THE CREATOR, and not have one god damned link to the actual homepage or the software?
https://mariadb.org
Why did I have to google that? Why were there 20+ irrelevant links in the opening paragraphs of the article? Why wasn't the actual website even mentioned until paragraph 7 of the second section? WHY didn't they even link it? Really? Gee, thanks, Rohan Pearce. Wouldn't want to enable my laziness, right?
Personal blog? As a source?
Easy to whine after you've sold the shop.
I love how these literally have "monty says" in the url
Because Windows is shit? Of course, Windows is quite secure these days. I already answered your point by referencing Apache HTTPD. Try again, maybe?
Again, you're using a term from an entirely different sphere that describes a phenomenon among biological organisms. Software products don't have variation from copy to copy, they don't breed, and they don't evolve through natural selection. They're designed and modified in response to specific needs and threats. Nothing could be further from how living things survive and propagate.
You have the right to be a sellout all you want its a free country. Just don't flush your integrity down the toilet while concurrently expecting others to still give a shit about you.
If I had to choose from one of the open source relational databases it would be PostgresSQL anyway.
Are there plans of replacing MySQL with this in LAMP/XAMP?
It's his blog. About the best source you can ask for.
Its no stretch to see that companies in the database business want a monopoly as much as people in the operating system business want a monopoly (you can cheerfully overcharge people, and get away with it, and make billions more than a free market should allow). A clear sign that Oracle wanted to do this: when they bought SleepyCat Software (responsible for maintaining the Berkeley DB packages from 1996 to 2006). Does Oracle need the Berkeley DB packages as a product? No. But they cut into some of the low-end market and Oracle didn't want even small-time competition, so they sold it. Likewise they paid US$1Billion for control over MySQL, except that MySQL is dual licensed, and the GPL side needed to fork into MariaDB so that people could still keep using something like it. I understand that Oracle would like to control the small DB market too, but they can't quite get away with that. The US Federal Government was looking over the deal quite carefully (particularly in regards to the Sherman Act). MariaDB is what I have been using for about 18 months. I switched about the time MySQL started using autoconf and automake for builds. I like knowing that the software I'm using will still be legal, in my control, and available, and not cancelled or made non-available by the whims of someone in a board room. I can't bet my business on that, and I won't.
Here's why: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/google-cloud-sql-discuss/rKtuhdBIdvI/ZLPL5LG4z1YJ
It's Monty's personal blog. What more do you want? You won't get a better source of Monty's own words than Monty's blog with his own words that he wrote. It's the very definition of a primary source.
Like say Florian Meuller?
Personal blog? As a source?
The personal blog of the person who is accused plainly talking about what he was accused of doing. Or is a personal account of one's own behavior not a valid source?
Did the headline godwin this thead befor it even began?
"The future belongs to me" is a song the Nazis sing in the musical "Cabaret."
That is a good use-case for sqlite, and I often use sqlite for similar reasons, but you could do something similar with MySQL's mysqldump and mysqlimport commands.
You would serialize your live MySQL instance to a file with mysqldump, ship that file with your project, and then the end-user would bring up their own live MySQL instance and deserialize the file into that instance with mysqlimport.
The reason you can't just copy around a MySQL or PostgreSQL file and use it directly like you can sqlite, is that these databases possess "process" components http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_%28computing%29 as well as "file" components. Sqlite relies on the program accessing the data to provide the "process" for running the software that accesses the sqlite file. It's a pretty significant architectural difference between them.
This means, among other things, that MySQL and PostgreSQL can be run on a central computer, which other computers access over the network, and sqlite cannot (unless you export sqlite via a sufficiently POSIX-compliant network filesystem, but most network filesystems do not provide all the support necessary to allow concurrency-safe sqlite access).
Who the hell would name their product MariaDB?