Board Meeting 4/2025 Minutes: Wed 24 Sep 2025 17:00-18:05 EET

Present board members:

  • Kaj Arnö, Chairman 
  • Eric Herman
  • Espen Håkonsen (Crayon Group), until Item 1
  • Sergei Golubchik (ex-officio as Developer Representative; MariaDB Corporation)
  • Frank Karlitschek (NextCloud), from Item 2
  • Sean Xiang Peng
  • Jignesh Shah representing Amazon AWS
  • Steve Shaw (HammerDB)
  • Rohit de Souza, representing MariaDB plc

Absent board members:

  • Todd Boyd (IBM)
  • Michael Widenius (ex-officio as Founder; MariaDB Corporation)

Present observers:

  • Barry Abrahamson (Automattic) 
  • Espen Håkonsen (Crayon Group), from Item 2
  • Stanislav Protassov (Acronis)
  • Michal Schorm (Red Hat)

Absent observers:

  • Serguei Beloussov (Constructor)
  • Peng Khim (DBS Bank)
  • Jim Zemlin (Linux Foundation)

Additionally, as non-voting secretary:

  • Anna Widenius, CEO

1. Decision: Election of Board Member and Board Observer

Proposal: Frank Karlitschek (NextCloud) to be elected as Board Member, after Espen Håkonsen, who has resigned

Espen Håkonsen (Crayon Group) to be elected as Observer

Discussion: Frank Karlitschek, founder and CEO of Nextcloud, introduced himself as a long-standing open source developer with nearly 30 years of experience. He has previously founded ownCloud, served as a board member and treasurer of the KDE Foundation, and is active in political advocacy for open source in Brussels and beyond. Frank highlighted strong parallels between Nextcloud and MariaDB, noting Nextcloud’s recommendation and partnership with MariaDB, and recalling early advice from Monty Widenius. He described himself as an advocate for digital rights and sovereignty, emphasising his commitment to bring his experience, network and resources to support the MariaDB Foundation.

Interview on Youtube (12:52): Building Open Source Together with MariaDB: Frank Karlitschek, Nextcloud 

Board members expressed strong support and enthusiasm, calling Frank a natural fit and warmly welcoming him as a valuable addition to the Foundation.

Decision: Proposal approved unanimously. Frank was welcomed to the Board, with warm appreciation expressed by all. Gratitude was also extended to Espen for continuing as an Observer and for his highly valued contributions as a member of the Operational Committee.

2. Follow-up: ⁠Moving MariaDB Foundation from Delaware to Finland

The Board noted that implementation has been delayed due to ongoing trademark agreement negotiations with MariaDB plc. The CEO explained that the delay was caused by the need to coordinate three sets of lawyers, compounded by overlapping vacation periods. All previous decisions and action points from the last meeting remain valid, and the expectation is that the matter will be resolved shortly, enabling the transition to proceed as planned. The Chairman concluded: “No change in plans, but delays.”

3. Status report: MariaDB Bangalore Hackathon 

The Chairman reported on the Foundation’s first large-scale hackathon organised independently, following the successful but smaller Helsinki event earlier in 2025. With a USD 25,000 budget from MariaDB plc, the Bangalore hackathon was launched in partnership with BangPypers (Python Meetup, ~14,000 members) and HackerEarth. By the time of the meeting, over 3,000 individuals and 250 teams had registered, with submissions expected to exceed 300.

Two objectives guide the hackathon: (1) Innovation – producing role models and demos of MariaDB features on GitHub; and (2) Integration – interface code enabling tools and frameworks to work seamlessly with MariaDB Server. The event is run virtually over two months (one for ideation, one for development), rather than as a physical 24/48h hackathon.

Quality review (AI + manual) indicates ~30% of submissions have useful potential, ~5% qualify for detailed coaching. While average quality is lower than in Helsinki, the scale of participation is significantly greater and seen as a success. 

Jignesh Shah commended the initiative, saying he was excited to see the Foundation reaching out to more people.

Call to Action: Board members are invited to support future hackathon planning (H1 2026) through their networks and expertise, particularly in broadening programming language scope (beyond Python to JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Rust et al.) and advising on suitable platforms.

4. Discussion: MariaDB’s AI Vision

The Chairman introduced the item, framing the overall question: How can we position MariaDB as the bridge between relational data and AI?

He reiterated the main consideration already circulated in the agenda: while the market is full of vector databases, what is really needed is a full relational database with vector capabilities. This is what MariaDB has delivered starting with version 11.8 GA LTS. He stressed that MariaDB’s implementation is not only more performant than other open source general-purpose RDBMS such as PostgreSQL, but also outperforms most specialised vector databases.

The Chairman framed the rhetoric as: “Don’t ask what AI can do for MariaDB – ask what MariaDB can do for AI.” He elaborated that Large Language Models are vast, read-only neural networks, but the real, live data that organisations depend upon sits in relational databases. MariaDB’s mission is to bridge this divide, making relational data directly available to AI – today through RAG applications, tomorrow through vibecoding, and in future through yet-to-be-invented approaches. The objective of MariaDB is to ensure AI can tap into real-world data with the same ease as it accesses the internet.

Rohit de Souza underlined how central this vision is for MariaDB plc. He explained that advisors such as Raghu Raghuram (ex-VMware CEO) strongly encouraged MariaDB to pursue this direction. He noted active partnerships under development through the MariaDB Cloud team and described enterprise demand for complete offerings, including interest from Oracle’s OCI. Rohit invited input and cautions from the Board to help steer this strategy.

Jignesh Shah highlighted the importance of making popular AI use cases simple for developers. He argued that while vectors and RAG are key starting points, MariaDB must focus on lowering the barrier for developers who want to build AI-based products. Jignesh also noted that Oracle is restricting MySQL’s AI features to HeatWave, which creates an opportunity for MariaDB as the open source alternative. He stressed the importance of attracting developers back to MariaDB around AI features, something he felt MySQL was failing to do.

Barry Abrahamson provided detailed feedback from the WordPress community. He explained that WordPress has a dedicated open source AI team, and saw MariaDB as the natural database for vectors in WordPress, given its ubiquity in hosting environments. He argued that storing vectors inside the relational database, close to the data, makes the most sense. Barry pointed to a current gap: how to vectorise data in a self-hosted and open source friendly way. He urged MariaDB to explore solutions that would let WordPress users benefit from vectorisation without corporate dependencies on providers like OpenAI. He recommended that MariaDB engage directly with the WordPress AI team, which would both help WordPress and solidify MariaDB’s role as the database of choice in the open source ecosystem.

As follow-up, Rohit de Souza proposed that Adam Luciano, who is leading MariaDB’s AI initiatives, connect directly with Barry to discuss WordPress use cases in more detail and to explore collaboration.

The Chairman added that MariaDB’s vector functionality is agnostic with regard to AI models: it does not require constant connection to providers like OpenAI or Anthropic, but can also work with locally hosted LLMs. This flexibility, he stressed, is a key differentiator for MariaDB.

Further remarks were made by Sergei Golubchik and Stanislav Protasov, noting how MariaDB is currently perceived in AI contexts and suggesting ways to demonstrate its suitability more clearly through documentation and examples.

5. Discussion: The demise of MySQL at Oracle 

The Chairman introduced the topic, framing the overall question: What actions can the Foundation and the Board take for MariaDB to best serve the community in light of the demise of MySQL at Oracle?

The Chairman recalled that this scenario was anticipated as early as Oracle’s acquisition of Sun in 2009. What many expected after the expiry of Oracle’s EU commitments in 2014 is now happening: nearly the entire MySQL organisation at Oracle is being dismantled, across sales, development and engineering. Oracle is deliberately shifting its focus to OCI and AI, leaving MySQL deprioritised and now placed organisationally under Java.

The Chairman stressed that this represents a key concern the original MariaDB developers had: they wished to pursue their vision, but also desired to serve the community, should MySQL no longer be willing or capable to do so. He reiterated the slogan first used in the spring – “MariaDB is the future of MySQL” – now truer than ever. He highlighted the importance of articulating clearly why MariaDB, and not PostgreSQL, is the natural choice. An anecdote illustrates this: a new MariaDB Silver Sponsor describes MariaDB to their customers using the phrase “MariaDB is the Open Source version of MySQL”, which was met with smiles from board members.

Jignesh Shah raised three main points:

  1. There is a perception that MariaDB and MySQL have diverged significantly, which makes users consider other databases. This is more perception than reality, but it is a barrier.
  2. Returning users “back to MariaDB” may face challenges such as resources and expertise. The Foundation should help them find what they need, especially in a moment when MySQL engineers are looking for new roles.
  3. He suggested a possible “MySQL compatible” flag to reassure users and reduce perceived distance between the projects. He also recommended that mariadb.org include a jobs section, pointing MySQL-skilled engineers towards opportunities with MariaDB sponsors and community.

The Chairman responded that perceptions can be corrected more easily than actual technical product gaps, and that syntactic sugar such as a compatibility flag may help.

Frank Karlitschek cautioned that communications challenges are not trivial, but suggested proactive PR: success stories of organisations switching to MariaDB could be placed in media to highlight real-world benefits.

Steve Shaw emphasised the importance of framing MariaDB as an upgrade, not just a replacement. He underlined two aspects:

  1. MariaDB is not a last resort but a superior option with enhanced features and performance.
  2. MariaDB’s status as pure open source, stewarded by the Foundation, contrasts strongly with Oracle’s closed positioning of MySQL inside OCI.

Eric Herman supported the “upgrade” framing but advised transparency: administrators must be able to assess where migration could be seamless and where special preparation is needed, including the ability to roll back.

Sergei Golubchik noted that the technical differences between MySQL and MariaDB are not major barriers, but perceptions matter, and communication should balance the message of MariaDB as both an “easy upgrade” and a distinct, stronger alternative.

Anna Widenius reported that close to 200 individuals had already contacted the leadership (based eg. on well-read LinkedIn postings), far more than the 70 layoffs mentioned in press articles, seeking either connections or opportunities. The Chairman added that not all were Oracle staff; some seized the moment independently.

Jignesh closed by suggesting that attracting these engineers into contributing to MariaDB would both strengthen the Foundation and help shift their mindset from MySQL to MariaDB.

6. CEO Update 

The CEO presented the new initiative of a MariaDB Ecosystem Hub, inspired by interactions with sponsors and technology partners. The vision is to create a discovery portal, placed prominently next to the download page, showcasing partner technologies, integrations, and solution stacks. The Foundation would not sell services but highlight compatible technologies, positioning MariaDB as the centre of an ecosystem – “powered by MariaDB”.

Jignesh Shah welcomed the idea and recommended maintaining a high bar of quality by linking directly to integration and documentation pages (rather than generic partner homepages), so that users quickly find information on how to set up and use MariaDB with the partner technology.

Eric Herman asked whether the initiative considered the Awesome MariaDB repositories on GitHub. The CEO confirmed this is one of the sources being monitored, with Robert Silén supporting outreach to projects that use MariaDB but mistakenly list MySQL. This forms part of the “Say the Name” initiative, encouraging projects and providers to correctly identify MariaDB in their documentation and marketing, thereby improving visibility and rankings. The CEO also noted that new sponsors are being asked to ensure their websites present MariaDB accurately.

The CEO described ongoing work with MariaDB plc’s training and certification team to expand educational opportunities, including for universities. 

The Chairman concluded that the Ecosystem Hub and the “Say the Name” initiative represent important strategic steps in strengthening MariaDB’s positioning and visibility.

7. Board Meetings 2025 and 2026

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

  • Wed 26 Nov 2025
  • Wed 25 Feb 2026
  • Wed 20 May 2026
  • Wed 9 Sep 2026
  • Wed 25 Nov 2026