Generating MariaDB Metrics

Something that is very important to us in the MariaDB Foundation is “Openness”. This is not only in the open source nature of MariaDB, but we are also very transparent in what happens with the MariaDB source code. With that in mind we have been working on ways to generate metrics that show information about the community in a consumable form.

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The Path to Code Contributions in MariaDB Server

I have been working for the MariaDB Foundation as the Chief Contributions Officer for a couple of weeks and it is fantastic being part of the MariaDB family again. Part of my job is to help the community massage pull requests into something that we can merge. I am, however, finding that one of the worst parts of my job is having to say “no” to contributions that clearly took a lot of time and effort on the part of the developer.

Contributions could be turned down or at least will require changes for a number of reasons.

Contribution Wish List

Would you like to contribute to the MariaDB Server code base, its feature set, its quality? Here’s what you can do to help – in other words, here’s our Contribution Wish List

Scratching your own itch

The assumption around code contributions is usually that the code contributor extends the product in a direction that corresponds to the contributor’s own needs, which in turn are close to the needs of other users. “Scratching your own itch” is the phrase commonly used.

Some itches are more for the common good

That said, we have also been approached by potential providers of contributions that would take a more general approach.

MariaDB & K8s: How to replicate MariaDB in K8s

In the previous blog we have seen how to create a statefulset MariaDB application. Also, we learned how replication works in MariaDB in this blog. Now, we will try to create a replicated statefulset application. As good references for creating this blog, I would like to give credit to the Kubernetes documentation as well as an example from Alibaba Cloud.

Configure replication

To replicate a MariaDB application we are going to create a statefulset that will consist of a single init container and one application container.

Contributions, our lifeblood

The lifeblood of MariaDB Foundation is contributions. Our trinity consists of the fundamental values of Adoption (of MariaDB Server), Openness (of the MariaDB Server codebase), and Continuity (of our operations and activities), all of which are centered around MariaDB Server. We rely on our financial sponsors to finance our activities, but the financial value of the code contributions we receive outshines the total sponsorship payments. That has been the case every year since MariaDB Server was launched.

Giving recognition to code contributions

The MariaDB Foundation has not given proper recognition to this fact, of the value of our contributions.

Celebrating Olivier Bertrand of the CONNECT Engine

Please join MariaDB Foundation in giving a bit of financial recognition to Olivier Bertrand, the developer behind the CONNECT Storage Engine! We will match your contribution up to a total of 5.000 €, on top of the 5.000 € that we have already allocated 5000 € for Olivier Bertrand’s Lifetime MariaDB Contribution Award.

What is CONNECT?

Olivier Bertrand is an unsung hero. He is the original contributor and still the main developer behind the CONNECT Storage Engine, which – much as its descriptive name indicates – enables MariaDB Server users to connect to a variety of databases other than MariaDB Server itself.

MariaDB Server Documentation as PDF

MariaDB Server Documentation is now released as a single PDF file, browsable offline. Download the over 3000 pages and check it out!

Better late than never

Some things take long! In 2014, there was a request on Jira for delivering the MariaDB Server Knowledgebase in one PDF file. That’s over seven years ago. MDEV-6881, you see it in the number already – we are now at well beyond MDEV-28000.

The request has always been in the back of our heads. What triggered it now was playing around with Python and the relative ease of transforming one format to another, including PDF.