Category Archives: Development
At MariaDB Foundation, we are proud of MariaDB Server getting plenty of contributions. But we don’t want to get cocky, so here is an update about where we stand, and what we want to make happen.
First, we have shown our contribution pride in several places. On 15 February 2019, I tweeted
On code contributions, #MariaDB beats #MySQL 1009 to 247: We have over a thousand (1009) closed pull requests on github (and 179 open), MySQL has 247 closed (1 open). https://t.co/32NIuMMTvc pic.twitter.com/ZZcRBdk939
— Kaj Arnö (@kajarno) February 15, 2019
Repeating: On code contributions, #MariaDB beats #MySQL 1009 to 247: We have over a thousand (1009) closed pull requests on GitHub (and 179 open), MySQL has 247 closed (1 open).
In our Annual Report 2018, we spent several pages, talking about pull requests and patches, showing code contribution statistics. …
MariaDB Server 10.4 came with a whole lot of Security related changes. Some of them are merely optimizations (like MDEV-15649), some improve existing features to be more robust (MDEV-15473, MDEV-7598) or convenient (MDEV-12835, MDEV-16266). Some are MySQL compatibility features, requested by our users (MDEV-7597, MDEV-13095).
But the first thing any MariaDB Server user, whether an experienced veteran or a newbie, does — before even issuing the first SQL statement — is logging in. Authenticating to the database server. …
Continue reading “Authentication in MariaDB 10.4 — Understanding the Changes”
Software licensing is a difficult subject that we don’t usually want to think about. It can be confusing and frustrating trying to work out whether different licenses are compatible, and problems like dual-licensing make it even harder. We all just want to write great code, not worry about licenses!
Until now, contributors who provide improvements and bug fixes to MariaDB have been asked to declare their license choice every time they make a contribution. For new contributors, or those who just want to submit a very small fix, this can be a complicated extra step they weren’t expecting. For regular contributors, it’s extra work for every single pull request. …
Continue reading “Easier licensing of MCAs for MariaDB contributors”
February in New York City is again MariaDB time, and the first MariaDB Developers Unconference of 2019 will take place on Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 February, with Hudson River Trading as kind hosts.
The event is free to attend and you can join for the entire weekend, or as little time as you wish. However, it is essential to sign up in advance on the event page at Meetup.com.
The schedule of this unconference is being drafted in a public spreadsheet. Please add suggestions for sessions you would like to present or lead on this spreadsheet. …
Virtualisation has been a very popular technique for both development and production systems for many years. It allows multiple software environments to run on the same physical machine.
Containerisation takes this idea even further. It allows you to segment your software environment down to the level of individual software packages. This means you can install multiple copies of MariaDB on one system, and run them in parallel while keeping them isolated from each other.
This is a very powerful technique when doing development because you can quickly test different versions of the software. It also allows you to experiment with clusters: you can create a complete Galera database cluster on a single computer! …
The MariaDB Foundation has had 2 projects accepted for Google Summer of Code 2018, of which one we deemed successful. Teodor Niculescu (teodorvicentiuniculescu@gmail.com)’s work was part of an effort to improve MariaDB’s query optimiser by providing faster histogram collection using equal-width histograms. His project is not yet in a release worthy state, yet we are working alongside him to get it feature complete (hopefully for our 10.4 version). We are glad that Teodor has chosen to present his work at the MariaDB Developer Unconference in Tampere and also remain within the community, although currently busy with his studies as is expected. …
Continue reading “MariaDB Foundation at the Google Mentor Summit”
The second MariaDB Developers Unconference of 2018 was held in Tampere, Finland on 26-29 June. The event was kindly hosted by Seravo and the Crazy Town venue offered us great facilities for collaborative work and discussions. Thanks to all 27 attendees who arrived!
Present were many core developers and new contributors interested in MariaDB development from all around the world. We had attendees all the way from Japan and India and also many from Finland and other European countries.
The first day – June 26th – was dedicated to new contributors and the topic of getting involved in MariaDB development. …
Continue reading “Tampere MariaDB Developers Unconference: Reportback & Presentations”
Here is a quick tip for any developer who might want to test if the latest development version of MariaDB installs/upgrades. Traditionally, developers seem to have a bunch of virtual machines lying around which they use to test MariaDB installation and upgrade related things. Snapshotting virtual images, keeping them up-to-date, starting, stopping etc. takes a lot of time and does not feel very convenient.
A much faster option would be to use pristine Docker images for every test. Docker images however normally only run one process and thus do not simulate a complete operating system and lack vital things like systemd interactions. …
Continue reading “Developer tip: test MariaDB install/upgrade quickly with Docker”