Board Meeting 2/2026 Minutes: Wed 24 Jun 2026 17:00-18:05/18:20 EET

Present board members:

  • Kaj Arnö, Chairman
  • Nanda Kaushik, representing Amazon AWS (new, replacing Jignesh Shah)
  • Frank Karlitschek (Nextcloud)
  • Kurt Daniel (Virtuozzo)
  • Frédéric ‘lefred’ Descamps

Absent board members:

  • Ashish Bhan, representing DBS Bank
  • René Bonvanie (resigned — see item 1)
  • Sergei Golubchik (ex-officio as Developer Representative)
  • Rohit de Souza, representing MariaDB plc
  • Michael Widenius (ex-officio as Founder)

Present observers:

  • Barry Abrahamson (Automattic)
  • Serguei Beloussov (Constructor)
  • Michal Schorm (Red Hat)
  • Stormy Peters, AWS (new, replacing Tarus Balog)
  • Steve Shaw (HammerDB)

Absent observers

  • Jürgen Ingels

Additionally, as non-voting secretary:

  • Anna Widenius, CEO

1. Elections

1.1 New AWS representative: Nanda Kaushik

Jignesh Shah has left Amazon Web Services. As per Foundation governance, AWS’s seat is organisational rather than personal, so this is a confirmation rather than a new election.

Nanda Kaushik introduced himself. He is Director of Engineering at AWS, responsible for Amazon Aurora MySQL, RDS MySQL, as well as performance upgrades and availability across Aurora. He has extensive database experience spanning Oracle, Sybase, Computer Associates, and a company spun off from IBM’s System R project. He acknowledged limited prior hands-on exposure to MariaDB and expressed a strong desire to learn. He stated that open-source databases and user choice are the right direction, that competition benefits the community, and that he hopes to bring industry expertise and, as he said, “understand before being understood”.

The Chairman noted Nanda’s System R lineage as a mark of serious database pedigree, and thanked him for immediately handling AWS’s sponsorship renewal upon joining.

1.2 New AWS observer: Stormy Peters

Tarus Balog’s term as AWS Observer has ended; AWS nominated Stormy Peters as replacement. Stormy joined briefly despite being on vacation. She has nearly 30 years of experience in open-source software — from founding one of Hewlett-Packard’s first open-source review boards to leading Microsoft’s open-source strategy, to board roles at the GNOME Foundation, Software Freedom Conservancy, Kids on Computers, and the Logistics Foundation. She currently leads open-source strategy and marketing at AWS. She emphasised the importance of clearly articulating what makes MariaDB different from MySQL and other databases, and the value of competition and differentiation. She noted she is a strong interpreter between communities and companies, which she sees as a central contribution she can make to this board.

Kurt Daniel (Virtuozzo) expressed particular interest in Stormy’s Microsoft background, given Microsoft’s evolving relationship with open source, and supported both new AWS representatives.

1.3 Resignation: René Bonvanie

René Bonvanie has resigned from the board due to other engagements. This leaves one open slot among the 10 potential board member positions. Anna Widenius placed on record a heartfelt thank-you to René for his service, in particular for helping restructure several aspects of the Foundation’s community work — work whose fruits are already visible in lefred’s results.

The Chairman also thanked outgoing AWS representatives Jignesh Shah and Tarus Balog for their service.

2. MySQL Ecosystem Interactions

2.1 Oracle MySQL Contributor Summit 2026

The Chairman reported on the Foundation’s growing engagement with the broader MySQL ecosystem. The central question — is MariaDB part of the MySQL ecosystem? — has been under discussion since at least FOSDEM in January/February 2026 and is now converging on a resounding yes.

Oracle invited MariaDB Foundation to present at the MySQL Contributor Summit 2026. The Chairman participated remotely, speaking on “MariaDB Foundation as Part of the MySQL Ecosystem –Same roots. Different paths. Shared ecosystem.” 

Key messages:

  • MySQL + MariaDB > PostgreSQL: unnecessary fragmentation weakens everyone; cooperation strengthens it.
  • More than half of the features on MySQL’s desired roadmap already exist in MariaDB.
  • Plugin ABI compatibility — championed by OurSQL and VillageSQL, notably by former Oracle VP Tomas Ulin — is an area of potential cooperation. Foundation interest is conditional on the many features that already exist in MariaDB not being redesigned from scratch.
  • The MariaDB Skills initiative for AI-assisted database work was publicly mentioned; the MCP vs. skills debate was discussed.
  • Forking is hard: long-term compatibility, operational familiarity, and extensibility all require sustained effort.
  • “A rising tide lifts all boats” — used by Oracle’s Heather VanCura (VP MySQL Community) and Jignesh Shah (AWS) and endorsed by the Chairman.

The invitation itself is significant: Oracle explicitly invited Foundation despite Foundation’s public positioning as the “natural successor” and “natural replacement” for MySQL. Heather VanCura liked the Chairman’s blog post on the Summit. Simon Mudd raised the question of syntactic divergence between MySQL and MariaDB; the Chairman said such divergence was never a goal and may reduce now that cooperation is on the table.

The 17-minute presentation is available on YouTube; see the Foundation blog post: https://mariadb.org/mariadb-foundation-at-oracles-mysql-contributor-summit/ 

2.2 OurSQL and VillageSQL

Anna Widenius reported positive discussions with both OurSQL (Vadim, PeterZ) and VillageSQL (Tomas Ulin, Dominic Preuss). The top-level alignment is similar: a rising tide lifts all boats; collaboration and mutual understanding of approaches is important. No clear path towards formal collaboration has been established yet, but discussions continue both technically and regarding future cooperation.

2.3 Oracle contact mechanism

In response to a question from Kurt Daniel (Virtuozzo), the Chairman confirmed that ongoing contact with Oracle runs through VP Heather VanCura. There have been approximately three monthly calls so far, the first of which included Oracle SVP Jason Wilcox. The format is regular but informal.

3. MariaDB Enabling AI and AI Enabling MariaDB — Skills

The Chairman gave a three-slide overview. The framing has shifted from “MariaDB enabling AI” (vector search) to also include “AI enabling MariaDB” through skills.

3.1 What skills are and why they matter

A skill is a formalised piece of expertise — readable equally by a human and by an AI — that tells an LLM harness, development environment, or chat client how to handle a specific MariaDB task. Skills distil the knowledge currently locked inside specialists (DBAs, developers, trainers, consultants) so that IT-literate users can accomplish a larger share of work that previously required expert engagement.

PostgreSQL is already significantly ahead in AI-assisted workflows; a link to the relevant Google/Register article will be shared in the notes. Skills represent a key opportunity for MariaDB to differentiate against both PostgreSQL and MySQL, and they serve the Foundation’s core mission of adoption, openness, and continuity.

3.2 The two dimensions

Skills differ along two independent axes:

  • Audience: DBA (production operators), Application Developer (those who build on MariaDB), Contributor (those who write MariaDB code).
  • Knowledge: Correction skills (inject missing or corrected knowledge into LLM responses), DIY/vibe skills (comprehensive guided processes producing a branded audit report as PDF), Commercial skills (Foundation promotes but does not build).

3.3 Current status

  • Released (not yet announced): 8 LLM correction skills at https://github.com/MariaDB/skills under the MIT licence: mariadb-features, mariadb-mcp, mariadb-query-optimization, mariadb-replication-and-ha, mariadb-system-versioned-tables, mariadb-vector, mysql-to-mariadb, oracle-to-mariadb.
  • Close to release: MariaDB AI DBA vibe skill (Robert Silén, skill author; Frédéric Descamps, DBA expert; Kaj Arnö, supervisor). Next steps: implement review points, blog, test in real production, move to the MariaDB/skills repository. The Chairman offered to share a sample DBA audit report PDF with the full board.
  • In specification: MySQL→MariaDB and Oracle→MariaDB migration checkers — audit-and-report pattern: inventory the source, flag incompatibilities, assess risk, set out the process. Explicitly a checker, not the migration itself.

3.4 Board discussion

Nanda Kaushik (AWS) asked whether the focus is MySQL→MariaDB migration or commercial-database→open-source in general. The Chairman confirmed the Foundation is actively pursuing both in parallel; skills are not C coding and resources exist for both tracks.

Kurt Daniel (Virtuozzo) asked about DevOps as a potential persona and about future skills for AI engineers, security professionals, and data scientists. The Chairman confirmed DBA covers much of the DevOps territory today and may expand. The MariaDB vector skill already addresses the AI/RAG use case; security audit is included in the DBA skill report; data science is noted but not a near-term priority.

Anna Widenius added that the Foundation has ongoing discussions with Constructor University and academic researchers about including their research into upstream MariaDB, and is exploring hackathons and related skills for the autumn.

Michal Schorm (Red Hat) endorsed the initiative and encouraged fast deployment to market, noting that getting correct MariaDB information through AI channels is itself a near-term priority.

4. First Quarter with MariaDB — Frédéric Descamps (lefred)

The full presentation (32 slides) ran out of time and will be shared as a separate recording or in a dedicated session. The slides are available at: https://mariadb.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/MariaDB-Foundation-First-Quarter-Board-Update_v3.pdf 

The following summarises the material covered at the meeting together with the key data points from the slides.

4.1 Goals on joining

lefred joined with four goals: bring long-time MySQL users into the MariaDB conversation; translate community concerns into board-level priorities; make MariaDB’s technical progress more understandable publicly; increase adoption and visibility of MariaDB Server as the open continuation of the MySQL lineage.

4.2 Outreach and content

Since joining approximately three months ago, lefred has published 30 blog posts on mariadb.org (5 more pending) and 31 posts on lefred.be, given 9 conference presentations (with another the following day on running MariaDB on Kubernetes), and manages the MariaDB and MariaDB Server LinkedIn groups. Blog traffic to mariadb.org has increased measurably since he joined.

4.3 Community polling

lefred introduced targeted community polls. A compatibility poll received 506 votes — significantly more than previous polls. Unexpected top finding: the most-requested items were the MEMBER OF JSON operator and bitwise operators for binary/bit types. This reveals genuine migration friction that was previously underweighted internally. A separate deployment poll confirmed that on-premises (VMs and bare metal) remains the dominant MariaDB deployment model — in contrast to MySQL’s apparent move away from on-premises.

4.4 Adoption metrics (February–May 2026)

From the slide deck:

  • mariadb.org downloads: 129,774 → 225,260 (+74%)
  • Docker Official Image pulls: 13.1M → 17.8M (+36%)
  • GitHub README mentions: 226,685 → 265,588 (+17%)
  • GitHub stars: 7,234 → 7,662 (+6%)
  • Unique GitHub PR contributors: 95 → 122 (+28%)
  • Returning contributors: 15 → 24 (+60%)
  • r/MariaDB subscribers: 3,480 → 3,678 (+6%)
  • Foundation LinkedIn followers: 5,886 → 6,119 (+4%)

MariaDB Server 11.8 received approximately 62 contributions from 35 external contributors; MariaDB 12.3.2 raised that to 57 external contributors.

4.5 Visibility discussion

Frank Karlitschek (Nextcloud) asked whether MariaDB actually has a visibility problem. Anna Widenius clarified two distinct issues: 

(1) many companies use MariaDB but describe their stack in MySQL terms (“say the name” problem); 

(2) usage numbers are hard to estimate because MariaDB ships as default in all major Linux distributions. 

Kurt Daniel noted MariaDB ranks 13th on DB-Engines. lefred observed that even experienced consultants who ask to see “MySQL” in production often find they are connecting to MariaDB. He emphasised the distinction between name recognition (which exists) and awareness of MariaDB’s specific capabilities (which remains weak). Audiences at his Italian roadshow were consistently surprised by features MariaDB has that MySQL does not.

4.6 Extensibility, plugins, and technical work

lefred presented a blog series on creating custom data types using the MariaDB plugin framework — a capability not available in MySQL. He noted that most of the features being discussed by VillageSQL (UDAFs, vectors) already exist in MariaDB Server. The Foundation is creating an Ecosystem Hub category for plugins. lefred also started a “hidden gems” series highlighting overlooked MariaDB features and a MariaDB Innovations series covering recent developments including DuckDB integration (“sea lion learns to quack”) and the TideSQL storage engine.

5. CEO Update

Time was limited; Anna Widenius covered the Ecosystem Hub, sponsorship evolution, and learnings from sponsorship discussions.

5.1 MariaDB Server Ecosystem Hub

The Ecosystem Hub https://ecohub.mariadb.org launched four months ago as a discovery layer for the MariaDB ecosystem — initially a low-key internal catalogue. It quickly attracted inbound requests from entities the Foundation did not previously know; Anna described this as “falling from the high horse” after 20+ years in the ecosystem. “I thought I knew everyone but lately keep learning about new amazing projects that rely on MariaDB”. User interest confirmed strong hunger for real-world deployment guidance.

This led to Solution Stacks — problem-solution-oriented landing pages. The first, launched a month ago with Nextcloud and Passbolt, focuses on data privacy and digital sovereignty. Virtuozzo is next. Frank Karlitschek noted he has been invited to keynote DrupalCon later this year and sees potential for a Drupal-related Solution Stack; Anna confirmed the Foundation has started exploring this with Sachiko Muto.

5.2 Sponsorship evolution

The Foundation’s sponsorship model is evolving from a small number of large organisations funding continuity to a broader model delivering immediate, visible value. While continuity remains an important factor, we see a shift in the approach to sponsorship in the community.

Two structural factors:

  • Large organisations: restructuring and shifting budget ownership repeatedly defer decisions to “next year.”
  • Smaller companies: limited discretionary budgets; need direct business or technical value alongside continuity.

The Foundation’s response is to restructure around visible ecosystem participation via the Ecosystem Hub and Solution Stacks.

5.3 Key learnings from sponsorship discussions

  • Migration readiness: Cloud and hosting providers anticipate a wave of MySQL migrations and want credible, well-tested paths to MariaDB.
  • Upstream contributions: Many organisations maintain internal patches and do not realise the commercial benefit of contributing upstream. The Foundation is actively evangelising this.
  • “Say the Name“: Partners using MariaDB often still describe their stack in MySQL terms, directly affecting DB-Engines ranking and general visibility.
  • Use-case storytelling: Sponsorship discussions surface compelling real-world MariaDB deployments that are now being published actively.
  • Feature and roadmap awareness: Partners are often unaware of MariaDB’s current capabilities and of the open feature-request process (GitHub, Jira). Messaging is being improved.

Stormy Peters encouraged gathering more data on whether users know which database they are actually running.

Steve Shaw complimented Anna for great work with sponsors.

6. Security in the Age of AI

This item arose after the formal agenda hour, initiated by Barry Abrahamson (Automattic). The Chairman was grateful for the discussion and noted it as exactly the kind of frank, operationally grounded input the board benefits from.

Barry Abrahamson reported that Automattic’s security team has been evaluating the MariaDB source code using LLMs and has found approximately 10 security vulnerabilities — ranging from information-disclosure bugs (random memory contents exposed in result sets) to crash bugs. Some of these are newly introduced in MariaDB 13.x rather than historical debt. In a multi-tenant hosting environment, cross-customer data disclosure from a single query is a critical concern. A series of the bugs were fixed in the latest release; Barry confirmed he has more to report and will email Sergei Golubchik.

Anna Widenius confirmed that Sergei Golubchik handles security for both MariaDB Server, and had already been pinged during the meeting. The Chairman noted that Sergei’s view is that the volume of AI-uncovered CVEs across all open-source projects remains high and that the number of serious issues is not yet close to peaking.

Query filter / rewriter hook (Barry Abrahamson’s request)

Barry requested that MariaDB implement a query-filter or query-rewriter hook equivalent to MySQL’s mechanism. In a multi-tenant environment, certain queries that would trigger known vulnerabilities are never legitimately used by applications. A server-side filter would allow hosting operators to block those queries immediately upon publication of a CVE, without waiting for an upstream fix and a server restart (which is operationally disruptive at scale). Barry clarified this is intended as temporary mitigation, not a permanent workaround. lefred initially noted the difficulty of maintaining such a list proactively, but on hearing Barry’s use case — known CVE pattern, block it until the patch is deployed — agreed the feature made compelling sense.

The Chairman and Anna will convey this request to MariaDB plc engineering.

Monthly security releases (Michal Schorm’s observation)

Michal Schorm (Red Hat) noted that MySQL recently introduced monthly security-focused releases in addition to its quarterly cadence, and that this appears to be an Oracle-wide policy rather than a MySQL-specific decision. He asked whether MariaDB is considering a similar approach. Anna committed to following up with Sergei Golubchik on this question.

7. Post-Meeting Technical Follow-up

The security discussion in item 6 took place after the formal one-hour agenda and reflected the board’s willingness to stay on for substantive technical exchange. The Chairman expressed particular gratitude to Barry Abrahamson and Michal Schorm for raising concrete, operationally grounded issues and to lefred for engaging with the details in real time.

The Chairman noted that this kind of post-meeting technical follow-up is valuable in its own right and may be worth establishing as a standing part of future board meetings — a space where board members and observers with direct operational experience can surface issues that would not naturally fit within the formal agenda.

8. Closing

The meeting ran past the scheduled hour. The Chairman thanked all participants. Anna Widenius expressed satisfaction with the discussions and confirmed she had already acted on several of the technical inputs during the meeting itself.

The meeting was closed.

9. Board Meetings 2026

Upcoming board meetings, all on Wednesdays 17:00-18:00 EET, followed by a voluntary technical follow-up.

  • Wed 9 Sep 2026
  • Wed 25 Nov 2026