Good move, will be good for the database for sure. I think of this article [0] every time someone says "why not just use <some hipster database written by 2 people over the course of a year>":
Rule 1: Developing a good DBMS requires 5-7 years and tens of millions of dollars.
The reason is that Alibaba is stuck with mysql and complex queries being put very very deep inside their architecture.
And yes, things like top level transaction databases are like hand maintained clusters of 20 servers for the whole Alibaba with query caching servers in front of them to prevent OOMs
They tried to get rid of it many times as written in their tech blogs, but this probably indicates that they finally gave up on such endeavour, choosing to own Mysql instead
I think using Postgres would be completely valid (could be wrong though), the issue would be converting their code base, rather than any stability issue in pg.
Any time I hear that a Chinese company is investing in a product I use, it's as if the Chinese government is now part owner of it as well. This may be general paranoia, but given the latest crackdown on VPNs and privacy, I don't know that I want a foreign government with a significant stake in Alibaba have access to direct the future of MariaDB. Is anyone else feeling this?
If you look at Alibaba's investment portfolio [1], you will see Alibaba has invested in a number of popular US-based startups like Snapchat and Lyft, so are they owning part of Snapchat as much as other VCs (depending on the % of course).
One can say about Google / Facebook / Amazon investing in startups and non-profits inevitably influence these organizations' directions; that's just the nature of any investments. When you donate money to a cause you support, you indirectly influence how the cause is headed, because you can pull the pledge, and when enough people pull the pledge, then the people running the cause/non-profits will have to do something to the demand of the donators.
China is the biggest creditor of the US national debt, and even before that US was careful with its relationship with China anyway. So we can't say there is a cause and effect, the best is a weak correlation, and even that is a stretch.
Yeah, would be better if a US company like Oracle were in charge of it ;)
(Not agreeing or disagreeing with you, just kind of funny/ironic that we're talking about a fork of an open source project that exists because of disagreement with the steward of MySQL... if Alibaba negatively impacts MariaDB, couldn't we just then move on to another fork. MylantaDB anyone?)
Not everything has to be about politics. Sometimes a big company investing in an open source database it already uses is just trying to improve its own infrastructure, not trying to hack your country.
I hear you. We should keep these companies in the hands of US tech companies that would never dream of violating our privacy or collaborating with a government entity against our wishes.
What would the concrete concern be in this case? Any backdoor would destroy the company brand and be excised immediately in a fork.
I suspect they’ll treat it like a piece of critical infrastructure; their political concerns would be at the gfw level, and I just don’t see the likelihood of weaponized attacks. Databases are usually locked down for egress and any outgoing attempts would be rapidly detected.
Interesting, If Google or another tech giant in the U.S. are investing it, would you worry about that? I remember Project PRISM did happen, didn't it ? Alibaba invested it to its own advantage by contributing back to opensource and try to get more Startups in China to use it, that's simple as that. And MariaDB is opensource and community-driven, I don't think it will be controlled.
I don't really understand the MariaDB love around here. If you look at actual production usage, MySQL gets the lion's share, looking at the customers each lists at their website. Oracle has been surprisingly benevolent as stewards of MySQL. That Business Source License that MariaDB put forward for new code at one point[1] looked like something I think would have cost an awful lot of goodwill if anyone else had used it.
- MariaDB Server will continue to be licensed under GPL in perpetuity, while its connectors will continue to be under the LGPL.
To be honest I cannot blame Monty. Google and Facebook were built on MySQL and probably didn't give back as much as he thought would be a fair shar. I guess he doesn't want to see this happening again.
Really very happy about this. I would love for MariaDB to outpace MySQL in terms of features, as I'm never quite sure which direction Oracle will take with MySQL (especially in terms of licensing)!
It’s ironic in a tragic way that people fear monger about Oracle changing the MySQL license (which has not changed from before Monty sold it to Sun) and advocate for a fork operated by a company that shits on the very concept of open source.
If the MariaDB MaxScale licensing bullshittery didn’t make you think twice about relying on MariaDB, why do you worry about Oracle?
He only made 300m. Us other MySQL employees (about 250) shared crumbs for that purchase (VPs excepted). He screwed us, but he never had respect for us - "people are lazy and greedy" (https://www.pythian.com/blog/mysql-ceo-marten-mickos-intervi...) . Then he promised he would fix the mistake he made with Maria by being more generous. Ha.
Just looked through the Crunchbase profiles of a few Western SQL/NoSQL database companies, and I did not see any Chinese investors. This investment will certainly give MariaDB a significant competitive advantage in China. It will be interesting to see if other startups follow their strategy.
Postgres has toxic fanboys. Instead of going for closed source competition like Oracle, DB2, MSSQL where Postgres is a valuable competitor, these really stupid fanboys go for friendly open source databases. Unfortunately toxic Postgres fanboys do this for 15+ years. How about try to convert the "hard part" (enterprise), not the friendly minded ones.
Chinese government is leading a $27M infiltration, code injection, and backdoor scheme in MariaDB in order to steal and hack account information for millions of sites around the world.
[+] [-] jjirsa|8 years ago|reply
Rule 1: Developing a good DBMS requires 5-7 years and tens of millions of dollars.
That’s if things go extremely well.
Rule 2: You aren’t an exception to Rule 1.
0: http://www.dbms2.com/2013/03/18/dbms-development-marklogic-h...
[+] [-] baybal2|8 years ago|reply
And yes, things like top level transaction databases are like hand maintained clusters of 20 servers for the whole Alibaba with query caching servers in front of them to prevent OOMs
They tried to get rid of it many times as written in their tech blogs, but this probably indicates that they finally gave up on such endeavour, choosing to own Mysql instead
[+] [-] orf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vlunkr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leandrod|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdhawk|8 years ago|reply
RocksDB from Facebook, ColumnStore, MaxScale...really cool stuff.
[+] [-] svisser|8 years ago|reply
https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL
[+] [-] smaili|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wanghq|8 years ago|reply
https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/alibaba%E2%80%99s-new-cloud...
A more detailed intro (in Chinese) can be found at http://www.infoq.com/cn/news/2017/08/ali-polardb.
Alibaba has developed another DB called OceanBase (open source). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12925679
[+] [-] ppeetteerr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yeukhon|8 years ago|reply
One can say about Google / Facebook / Amazon investing in startups and non-profits inevitably influence these organizations' directions; that's just the nature of any investments. When you donate money to a cause you support, you indirectly influence how the cause is headed, because you can pull the pledge, and when enough people pull the pledge, then the people running the cause/non-profits will have to do something to the demand of the donators.
China is the biggest creditor of the US national debt, and even before that US was careful with its relationship with China anyway. So we can't say there is a cause and effect, the best is a weak correlation, and even that is a stretch.
[1]: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/alibaba/investments
[+] [-] jordanlev|8 years ago|reply
(Not agreeing or disagreeing with you, just kind of funny/ironic that we're talking about a fork of an open source project that exists because of disagreement with the steward of MySQL... if Alibaba negatively impacts MariaDB, couldn't we just then move on to another fork. MylantaDB anyone?)
[+] [-] patrickaljord|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AsyncAwait|8 years ago|reply
Yes, but the Western governments are moving in a similar direction. I'd rather Alibaba sponsor MariaDB than not.
[+] [-] projectramo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnbfrdjng|8 years ago|reply
I suspect they’ll treat it like a piece of critical infrastructure; their political concerns would be at the gfw level, and I just don’t see the likelihood of weaponized attacks. Databases are usually locked down for egress and any outgoing attempts would be rapidly detected.
[+] [-] whooshee|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martin1975|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dreamfactored|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawaymanbot|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] cwyers|8 years ago|reply
1) https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb
[+] [-] noncoml|8 years ago|reply
- MariaDB MaxScale 2.0 will be under the BSL.
- MariaDB Server will continue to be licensed under GPL in perpetuity, while its connectors will continue to be under the LGPL.
To be honest I cannot blame Monty. Google and Facebook were built on MySQL and probably didn't give back as much as he thought would be a fair shar. I guess he doesn't want to see this happening again.
[+] [-] jzawodn|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] osrec|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephenr|8 years ago|reply
If the MariaDB MaxScale licensing bullshittery didn’t make you think twice about relying on MariaDB, why do you worry about Oracle?
[+] [-] gaius|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesblonde|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpicolo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KGIII|8 years ago|reply
Meaning, he's probably limited his investments into the new company.
[+] [-] snowman311|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unixhero|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] autotune|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jim_d|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starrychloe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whooshee|8 years ago|reply