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by jeremycole 4311 days ago
No, not really. MariaDB is completely dependent on Oracle and Percona. While they are doing some good work, they are by no means a complete and independent fork, nor do they have the resources to be.

MariaDB is also impacted by the lack of tests, they are absolutely not making replacements for all those tests, and they continue to pull code from upstream. So, same problem there.
2 comments
sjwright 4310 days ago
This might have been true in 2011-12, but today MariaDB is demonstrably NOT dependent on Oracle or Percona. If both disappeared tomorrow, it would still continue.

The fact that they continue to "pull" some code is because they're not idiots, and aren't going to duplicate effort. As far as I'm aware, they are now being very selective about what they pull.

Calling Oracle an "upstream" is a joke. They aren't publishing atomic changesets, which also means the Oracle fork of MySQL is no longer a morally Open Source software program.

MariaDB is NOT impacted by some vaporous lack of tests. They are building tests for every change they're making. As for the tests privately held by Oracle, well, those tests don't help anyone because they're not public and don't enjoy public scrutiny. Who knows if they're even running them?

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sjwright 4310 days ago
> nor do they have the resources to be.

They have received large investments from companies like Intel, and have been granted extensive engineering (and probably financial) help from companies like Google and Facebook. Probably many others. And they have most of the MySQL brains-trust in their employ, Monty most famously. I don't know how anyone could argue they're under-resourced for the task of maintaining and improving a mature product.

Compare that with Oracle, who pulls dangerous stunts like this: http://ronaldbradford.com/blog/when-is-a-crashing-mysql-bug-...

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spudlyo 4307 days ago
I don't know how anyone could argue they're under-resourced for the task of maintaining and improving a mature product.

You mean Jeremy Cole, the guy you're arguing with, who led the effort at Google to standardize on MariaDB[0], who worked for many years with Monty at MySQL AB and who is a recognized leader in the MySQL community?[1] Fuck that guy, I have no idea how he could have such an opinion.

[0]: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/12/google_mariadb_mysql...

[1]: http://openlife.cc/blogs/2013/april/mysql-community-awards-2...

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