Board Meeting 4/2024 Minutes: Wed 27 Nov 2024 16:00-17:00 EET

Present board members:

  • Eric Herman, Chairman
  • Barry Abrahamson (Automattic) 
  • Todd Boyd (IBM)
  • Paul O’Brien representing MariaDB plc
  • Espen Håkonsen (Crayon Group)
  • Sergei Golubchik (MariaDB Corporation)
  • Sean Xiang Peng
  • Jignesh Shah representing Amazon AWS
  • Steve Shaw (HammerDB)
  • Michael Widenius (MariaDB Corporation)

Present observers:

  • Stanislav Protassov (Acronis)

Absent observers:

  • Peng Khim (DBS Bank)
  • Serguei Beloussov (Constructor)

1. CEO update

1.1 Adoption activities

Our key adoption related events were in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India on 23-24 Oct 2024 (Open Source India, “Asia’s leading Open Source event” at the NIMHANS Convention Center) and 25 Oct 2024 (our own MariaDB India Day). This was reported to be a 5000+ participants event (it seemed less than half of 8000+ participant FOSDEM, but still huge) where we had a lot of evangelisation opportunities, thanks to our new slogan “MariaDB is the future of MySQL” and the cult-status of our rock-star Monty. Of particular interest is that our event was visited by MariaDB plc CEO Rohit de Souza, setting expectations on stage, and MariaBD plc CPO Vikas Mathur, on stage for questions together with our founder Michael Widenius and others, as announced in the CEO blog MariaDB – the Foundation, the Company, and the Future of the Sea Lion. All in all, this was our first event in India, both long overdue and highly inspiring, with lots of interactions with local MariaDB users, service providers, and students, not to forget the considerable contingent of MariaDB plc employees based in India (several even in Bengaluru).  

At the end of October, we celebrated 15 years passing since the first MariaDB Server release. Ian Gilfillan put things into perspective in MariaDB Server turns fifteen!, and in Celebrating 15 years of innovation, Kaj Arnö drew attention to our founder Monty’s excellent and technically comprehensive feature overview. In turn, Monty’s review was inspired by the feedback he got in India, understanding how much work we have to do in terms of presenting a more clear and correct picture of MariaDB features – dispelling some myths (that we are behind MySQL, or lacking in features). 

Kristian Nielsen presented The implementation of MariaDB parallel replication on 6 Nov 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Kaj Arnö presented MariaDB Vector: Why your AI data should be in an RDBMS on 8 Nov 2024 at the 24th SFSCON in Bozen, Südtirol, Italy.

The CEO was asked about the new slogan used in India and noted that we remain focusing on growing in the database landscape as a whole, in particular also based on users of closed source databases such as Oracle Database and MS SQL Server achieving numerous benefits from MariaDB Server being Open Source.

1.2 Openness / contributions

New releases were announced: MariaDB 11.4.4, 11.2.6, 10.11.10, 10.6.20 and 10.5.27 now available (Ian Gilfillan 4 Nov 2024), followed by MariaDB 11.6.2 and MariaDB 11.7.1 now available (Ian Gilfillan 22 Nov 2024). We noted the need for better coordination of the release process with MariaDB plc and are already noticing with pleasure that steps are being taken in that direction by the new management of plc.

Our quarterly contribution statistics (by Andrew Hutchings), MariaDB Contribution Statistics, October 2024, noted IONOS as a new contributor, as well as Rakuten, who have been working on improving the Oracle compatibility code. We also merged Google Summer of Code contributions. The Connector/C project had a contribution from a new contributor, ClickHouse. We added new statistics by Lines of Code contributed this year, with MariaDB plc at 86.5 % in the top. 

Răzvan Vărzaru drew attention to our sponsor Intel in Protect your data with MariaDB Server and Intel® TDX 15 Nov 2024.

Andrew Hutchings pointed out how he helped two of our sponsors simultaneously, DBS Bank and MariaDB Plc, with a recent issue they were experiencing (the S3 storage engine), in MariaDB Foundation assisting multiple vendors 10 Sep 2024.

We converted our plans for announcing the first MariaDB Hackathon – in India to instead be the MariaDB Vector Bounty Program (blogs by Andrew Hutchings Oct 2024). This is meant to activate the developer community in the expansion of MariaDB Vector to support AI frameworks.

1.3 Continuity

Adjacent to the Adoption related Indian events in Bengaluru, we held our 2024 Staff Meeting during the weekend thereafter. Face-to-face meetings are essential catalysts to the personal chemistry which during the rest of the year is confined to remote work over text, voice, and video. We took the opportunity to spend time on resolving some issues, which had been postponed due to their complexity, where physical presence sped up progress.

Vikas Mathur, CPO of the plc also was part of the Staff Meeting. His presence set the expectations of the entire staff about constructively working closer with plc in engineering, with proper common coordination of projects.

After several years of service, our Chief Contributor Officer Andrew Hutchings resigned, effective 1 Nov 2024. His duties are mostly taken over by Vicentiu Ciorbaru.

1.4 The state of MariaDB Vector initiative

With the new releases and all the Vector presentations (in India, in Italy), our messaging is getting clearer: MariaDB Vector is there, it is part of MariaDB 11.7.1, and any MariaDB or MySQL user should test it right now! “The day you’ve been waiting for since the ChatGPT hype started is here: MariaDB users (and MySQL users willing to migrate) have the possibility to create chat engines giving answers solely based on user specific data (as opposed to generic ChatGPT answers).” With the existing functionality, there is a huge set of such RAG use cases centered.

We anticipate coordination of both adoption and development activities with MariaDB plc.

2. Budget 2025

Estimate by end of 2024:

Sponsorships total€1 580 281
Staff expenses-€1 180 481
Employees-€984 418
Consultants-€196 063
Other operating expenses-€156 842
Marketing-€36 037
Hardware-€58 000
Travel costs-€20 000
Financial and Legal Services-€37 805
Other-€5 000
OPERATING PROFIT (-LOSS)€242 958

Budget for 2025

  • same as 2024 (overall goals, income, expenses)
  • less cost because Andrew Hutchings quit 
  • more cost because Kristian Nielsen and Robert Silén were not full-year 2024
  • churn rate of 25 % still gives operating profit of zero
  • cash flow issues, as renewals flock towards end of the year
  • sponsorship relationship with plc still pending, part of item 4, plans to cover for cash ending in March using plc funds
  • need to find Andrew Hutchings replacement and recruits for new initiatives, but currently no buffer in the budget for any recruitments 

Decision: Budget approved as presented. Budget to be followed up on board meetings.

3. Appointment of Cooperation Committee

Proposal: Set up a Board committee, who can work hands on and coordinated by the CEO, with people representing plc, with a mandate to make a proposal for a deeper collaboration with the plc, acknowledging the unique role of MariaDB plc for MariaDB Foundation and MariaDB Server. 

Background: In the CEO’s discussions with the new MariaDB plc management, it has become clear that they fundamentally respect MariaDB Foundation and see deep value in it, for the best of MariaDB Server. With new leadership in place, we have the opportunity to re-think through everything from the ground up with our largest contributor.

Decision: The following people volunteered for the committee, and were unanimously elected:

  • Jignesh Shah representing Amazon AWS
  • Steve Shaw 
  • Sean Peng 
  • Espen Håkonsen

The committee is to self-organise and meet as needed, as a whole, with the CEO, with plc representatives, between individual committee members, and with other Board members not on the Committee. A final proposal is to be delivered by the next Board meeting, BoD 1/2025 on Wed 26 Feb 2025. 

4. Replacement of MariaDB plc Board representative 

Proposal: Replacement of Paul O’Brien (ex CEO) with Rohit de Souza (CEO), representing MariaDB plc, with Vikas Mathur (CPO of MariaDB) as his deputy, also to be elected Observer.

Background: At Board Meeting 4/2023, item 4, Paul O’Brien was elected to represent MariaDB plc on the MariaDB Foundation Board. Paul has on 5 Nov 2023 by email requested for MariaDB plc to be represented on the Board as proposed above.

Decision: As proposed.

5. Board Meetings 2025

The Chairman noted that we currently have no Board members calling in from Asia. Hence, the board decided to postpone meetings by one hour. 

The CEO is to send out invites for next year.

Upcoming board meetings, all on Wednesdays 17:00-18:00 EET

  • Wed 26 Feb 2025
  • Wed 21 May 2025
  • Wed 3 Sep 2025
  • Wed 26 Nov 2025