The Queen, the contributions and the wardrobe

I suppose not all of my readers have a first hand (or even second hand) experience of the girls-night-in. So let me shed some light on this sacred ritual of tea, sympathy and soul-baring conversation that zigzags from the ridiculous to the profound and back again in under 30 seconds.

There a few eternal mysteries that always seem to come up –
Like:
“Why do I have nothing to wear when my wardrobe is clearly full of clothes?”
And:
“Why does cat food smell weirdly delicious?”
(Okay, I do know the answer to that one: stop crash-dieting already!

Tempesta Technologies Becomes Silver Sponsor of MariaDB Foundation

We are delighted to welcome Tempesta Technologies as a Silver Sponsor of the MariaDB Foundation!

Tempesta Technologies is the developer of Tempesta FW, an open-source hybrid of a web accelerator and a multi-layer firewall. Engineered for maximum efficiency, Tempesta FW is tightly integrated with the Linux TCP/IP stack and leverages cutting-edge technologies to deliver exceptional web application performance. It provides robust protection against DDoS and web attacks while ensuring smooth, high-speed operation under normal conditions.

This partnership underscores MariaDB Server’s continued commitment to performance and efficiency—not just in terms of database speed and scalability, but across the broader ecosystem that powers modern web infrastructure.

This month in MariaDB Foundation: Mar 2025

March was a busy month in the world of MariaDB!

Let’s explore the progress through the lens of the Six Goals for 2025, introduced in January. 

Board Meeting 1/2025: New Executive Chairman, new CEO

But before we dive into that, let me briefly highlight developments from the two most recent Board Meetings. In the Report from the Board blog post about the late February meeting, I already noted a key organisational change:

  • I am transitioning my role to be Executive Chairman, providing the overall leadership vision for the transformation of the Foundation and expanding the Foundation’s presence and influence in the industry. 

Always use the right UUID in MariaDB

The following post was written by Stefano Petrilli, who contributed UUIDv4 and UUIDv7 implementations to MariaDB. Thank you, Stefano!


The original version of the Universal Unique IDentifiers (UUID), which is now known as UUIDv1, made his first appearance in the 1980s. The most interesting guarantee that they provide is the generation of IDs that are always unique across space and time.

To comply with this promise, it uses a combination of three elements:

  • The node, which is a field that identifies the machine that generated the UUID.

First Steps in Contributing to MariaDB

At MariaDB Day in February in Brussels, VP Engineering Vicențiu Ciurbaru delivered an inspiring presentation titled “Launch Your Open Source Career: First Steps in Contributing to MariaDB.”

In the spirit of the recent positive stats on new contributions to MariaDB, let me recap Vicentiu’s tips for anyone looking to make their first contribution. 

Contributing to MariaDB is not only about writing code—it’s about joining a vibrant community where every contribution, big or small, drives innovation. We hope newcomers can see a tangible path to getting involved.

How to start contributing? 

The Accidental Queen of the Database Dominion – Month one

Exactly one month ago, I found myself stepping into the role of CEO at MariaDB Foundation. It was a bit like being handed the keys to a beloved old ship and being told, “Don’t worry, it mostly steers itself… unless there’s a storm. Or a kraken. Or a GitHub issue.”

As someone whose surname gives away a bit of context, it’s both an honor and a deeply personal journey to be entrusted with stewarding this next chapter. I used to say that I have done my bit for the project by adding “Maria” to “MariaDB”, but what do you know it turns out – there is a lot more out there for me to do!!!

Last chance to apply to AI RAG Hackathon

The ideation phase of the MariaDB AI RAG Hackathon is nearing its deadline on Monday (by end of March). 

We have several cool submissions so far. One is about combining the Knowledge Graph and LLMs, using MariaDB Vector Nearest Neighbour Search. Another one is about an “advanced context diff”, identifying the differences between two text corpuses based not on their literal wording, but on their content. 

All of the current submissions are in the Innovation track. We would particularly like submissions in the Integration track  – to add MariaDB to frameworks such as these, or other apps. 

A Conversation with Michal Schorm: MariaDB in Red Hat and Fedora

In a recent conversation, I had the pleasure of speaking with Michal Schorm, the maintainer of MariaDB packages for Red Hat and Fedora – and newly elected Observer on the MariaDB Foundation Board. Our discussion covered his role, the current state of MariaDB in these distributions, and ideas for future improvements.

The Role of a MariaDB Package Maintainer

Michal is responsible for ensuring that the MariaDB source code is compiled and made available as installable packages for Fedora, CentOS Stream, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).