Monty says: Invitation to test MariaDB 5.1 release candidate

Here comes the Drop in Replacement of MySql, Thanks to all those who made it possible.

"MariaDB 5.1 is based on MySQL 5.1 codebase, which has been GA for a year now. Most of the things we have included in addition to the vanilla 5.1 code upstream from Sun/MySQL (more on this below) have also been available in the community for quite a long time, so we are quite confident that this is a very stable release; however, being conservative we have had a four month Beta cycle before now going to RC.

I would now like to invite everyone in the community to download and test this release, and if the feedback is good will we then rapidly release a Final release."
Monty says: Invitation to test MariaDB 5.1 release candidate

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Saving "MySql" is Like saving the Future of Open Source

The open source database MySql would be no longer open source if the acquisition deal of Oracle to buy Sun is approved by EC. Here is an appeal from the creator of MySql.

I, Michael "Monty" Widenius, the creator of MySQL, is asking you urgently to help save MySQL from Oracle's clutches. Without yourimmediate help Oracle might get to own MySQL any day now. Bywriting to the European Commission (EC) you can support this cause and help secure the future development of the product MySQL as an Open Source project.


Oracle is trying to buy Sun, and since Sun bought MySQL last year, Oracle would then own MySQL. With your support, there is a good chance that the EC (from which Oracle needs approval) could prevent this from happening or demand Oracle to change the terms for MySQL or give other guarantees to the users. Without your support, it might not. The EC is our last big hope now because the US government approved the deal while Europe is still worried about the effects.

Instead of just working out this with the EC and agree on appropriate remedies to correct the situation, Oracle has insteadcontacted hundreds of their big customers and asked them to write to the EC and require unconditional acceptance of the deal. According to what I been told, Oracle has promised to the customers, among other things, that "they will put more money into MySQL development than what Sun did" and that "if they would ever abandon MYSQL, a fork will appear and take care of things".

However just putting money into development is not proof that anything useful will ever be delivered or that MySQL will continue to be a competitive force in the market as it's now.

As I already blogged before, a fork is not enough to keep MySQL alive for all future, if Oracle, as the copyright holder of MySQL, would at any point decide that they should kill MySQL or make parts of MySQL closed source.

Open Source Economics

Before reading this blog from Michael Widenius, I was of the view that open source movement can go on without the support of any organization. In my opinion it was an effort by the contributors. But alas it is not. It needs an economics to sustain. Here is the excerpt

"MySQL is not an end user application, but an infrastructure project that is quite deep in the system stack. Most of the technology partners, where most of the innovation in the MySQL space happen nowadays, depend on being able to get licenses for MySQL so that they can combine their closed source application or closed code (like storage engines) with MySQL. If you take the license revenue and add it to all direct and indirect money that comes from these kind of partners, this is a huge part of the MySQL economic infrastructure (i.e., where the money is).

The simple fact is that keeping a project like MySQL alive and having it compete with big vendors like Oracle, require many people working in it. If they can't get any revenue from doing that (except support revenue, which is not enough), you will find very few companies prepared to do development and extremely few (or none) investment company would put serious money on a company that gets all of it's money on services (not scalable)."

New Life for Open Source Movement

Open source movement was worried over the acquisition of "MySQL" by "ORACLE". There was all kind of speculation about the future of most successful open source database. Recent two events have breathed a new life into the movement. One is the inquiry of the US Department Of Justice regarding how the Oracle / Sun deal could affect Open Source software, in particular MySQL and Java and the other is announcement of Google to launch an open source Google Chrome OS.

Future of MySQL

Most disturbing news on the scene of open source software is the acquisition of MySQL database by ORACLE - a competing product. There is a fear that its fate will be the same as that of "Foxpro" that was acquired by MICROSOFT - "Foxpro" was lead to death. However, there is also a silver lining on the horizon that "They will embrace MySQL and Open Source and put their technical expertise on it to ensure that MySQL continues to be the most popular advanced Open Source database."