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MariaDB Foundation

You may have already seen the announcement MariaDB Foundation to Safeguard Leading Open Source Database. We at Open Query wholeheartedly support this (r)evolution of the MySQL ecosystem, which appears to be increasingly necessary as Oracle Corp is seriously dropping the ball with security updates and actually just general development and innovation. Oracle has actually done some very good work, I happily acknowledge that – but security issues are critical, having crashing bugs and incorrect query results in a .28 of a GA release is uncool, and not incorporating awesome development efforts by the community is just astonishing.

MariaDB is where the Sphinx fulltext search and OQGraph engines are integrated, the community developed virtual columns and Galera synchronous replication are added, and the fabulous developers at Monty Program have taken the time to fix up the previously ghastly performance of subqueries so that they now rock. And that’s apart from the many little bugs Monty Program has fixed along the way. Awesome work, guys!

MariaDB still merges from stock MySQL, but it’s important to not be dependent on that – the MariaDB Foundation can help support that already existing effort and raise the profile of MariaDB to – as far as I’m concerned – move on from MySQL.

From our end, apart from our continued active involvement in the community, Open Query will be adjusting and augmenting its fee structure so that our clients co-fund MariaDB Foundation and contributing companies such as Codership (Galera). MySQL and MariaDB are mission critical for businesses. It’s not (and never has been) a case of volunteers and mere charity. We all p(l)ay our part.

It’s time to upgrade.

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