[floating-io]

For those who are using MariaDB in a business context: does this make you more or less likely to choose it for your next project?

I don't know anything about K1, so all I have is confusion (and a sudden urge to switch entirely to postgres).

[stackskipton]

I’d say less. This acquisition screams that some MBA looked at their financials, saw money left on table, likely by not completely screwing over customers, and said, let’s do this! Think Broadcom/VMware on smaller scale.

You don’t put yourself in debt and replace the CEO unless you see some value not currently being realized.

They might even try license shenanigans but with GPLv2, not sure what they can do.

[evanelias]

I'm usually skeptical of private equity, but in this case I see reasons to not be immediately cynical. The purchase price was only ~$37 million USD, which is quite reasonable considering MariaDB's reach and potential.

MariaDB plc has some really talented C++ engineers who are experts in database internals. Their DB has some compelling features that many competitors lack, for example system-versioned tables, Oracle DB compatibility layer, and soon a really nice multi-tenancy feature (catalogs). MariaDB plc has a strong presence in Europe, which I would assume is very appealing for potential European customers. And now they finally have an owner with deeper pockets, which hasn't been true in recent history; their previous financial state likely hindered commercial adoption.

If MariaDB can execute well on support and services, I'd imagine their new owners can get a good return on their investment as-is. No need for squeezing and strip-mining them, I don't see how that would even work in this case.

[stackskipton]

They are, let’s call it 40 Million in the hole. That’s not money invested in RD or anything. It was given to shareholders and they will pocket it.

[evanelias]

The company sold at a considerable loss to shareholders. No one got rich there. Their SPAC was not good and should never have happened. Even if they hadn't sold the company, their stock would have been de-listed anyway, due to being deficient on both market cap and share price. A reverse-split can temporarily fix the latter but not the former.

There were, however, multiple interested buyers (at least 3 from what I recall reading over the past year) because there's a lot of potential upside if their execution improves.

If you think my statements are incorrect, what do you propose was the motivation for this purchase?

[stackskipton]

The motivation for the purchase is Enterprise Database software is extremely sticky. So what I said in my original post, jack up the licensing the costs and cut expenses and squeeze the customer base for more money.

It doesn't matter about loss to shareholders, money paid is NOT going to the company, it's going to shareholders unless the company is significant shareholder. K1 has -40Million on Spreadsheet about MariaDB BEFORE any additional investments and they want that money back. So how is K1 going to make its money back? My gut is my original post is more correct than some investing in the product to make a better database and beat out the competitors. I'll point out the new CEO, while having engineering degrees, seems to be more a business type person.

[evanelias]

> Enterprise Database software is extremely sticky. So what I said in my original post, jack up the licensing the costs

Nope, that doesn't make any sense in my view. Let's say e.g. the cost of both MariaDB Enterprise and MaxScale is jacked up significantly. Then customers can easily switch back to MariaDB Community Server, and/or get paid support and products from Oracle MySQL, or Percona, or ProxySQL, or Pythian, or Vettabase, or Mydbops, or any number of other companies with significant experience in this exact space.

> and cut expenses

Prior to this sale, MariaDB plc already had major rounds of layoffs, discontinued several product lines, and spun off their cloud database. What do you suggest the new owner is going to cut, specifically?

> money paid is NOT going to the company

That is blatantly obvious, why do you keep repeating it? No one in this thread is saying the money goes to the company. That's not how acquisitions ever work!

> I'll point out the new CEO, while having engineering degrees, seems to be more a business type person.

Looks to me like a very similar profile to their two previous CEOs, except the outgoing one didn't have an engineering degree!

[stephenr]

It's a weird scenario where a bunch of people bemoaned Oracle owning MySQL (hence MariaDB exists), and yet Oracle have maintained and allowed MySQL to see huge improvements, and they include their sql proxy under GPL as well.

As a weird twist of coincidence and irony, MariaDB's sql proxy is BSL only.

I don't think either license is a reason to use/not use the respective DB system (HAproxy exists) but it's always funny to me how the "we must keep it open" group did exactly what they accused Oracle of planning to do.

[packetlost]

Oracle is kind of a shitty company to deal with, but they seem to be doing relatively well with open source these days.

[re-thc]

> and yet Oracle have maintained and allowed MySQL to see huge improvements

In the latest twist Oracle is adding things other Heatwave and not MySQL i.e. not open source.

It's an ever-changing situation.

> (hence MariaDB exists)

That's sort of the old take. Lots of new features aren't compatible on both sides. MariaDB has diverged. It just hasn't gained enough traction for those things to matter.

[stephenr]

> That's sort of the old take. Lots of new features aren't compatible on both sides.

If by "the old take" you mean "the stated reason they created the fork" then sure. I guess everyone's a revisionist when it's convenient.

[kev009]

I moved to postgres over a decade ago but have occasionally had to interlope into MySQL/MariaDB infrastructure. IMHO it has been a lesser choice for a long time, typically just clinging onto it because of legacy reasons or an over-involved executive but these people are also typically very proud and protective over the thing they know.

Realistically if you need the MySQL semantics (eww) and wire protocol TiDB or a hosted offering like Aurora DB have been better choices for a long time now.

[walth]

For single instances, this seems very true.

For complex multi-member clusters Maria/MySQL are quite far ahead.

[kev009]

Ahead of what? Compatibles completely eclipse MySQL's operation model by any conceivable metric or operational hygiene.

[mathnode]

From my POV, it's a supplier that is no longer beholden to shareholders demands for profit. A platform and service that can operate using customer sourced revenue and respond to market demand without a profit driven board is a big win for everyone while funding development and maintenance of a great open source project.

[CyanLite2]

I think that’s exactly the wrong impression I get. Private equity is going to cause them to quickly get to better profitability through price increases, layoffs, and reduced R&D.

[justinclift]

> it's a supplier that is no longer beholden to shareholders demands for profit.

That doesn't seem correct. It's now owned by a single shareholder, that's literally a financial organisation of the kind likely to turn the screws until the last drop of blood is gone.

[whalesalad]

I jumped ship from mysql/mariadb to psql over a decade ago and can't imagine why I would ever look back.