Category Archives: Development
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.
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One week left to join the AI RAG Hackathon with MariaDB Vector and Python!
Winners get to demo at the Helsinki Python meetup in May, receive merit and publicity from MariaDB Foundation and Open Ocean Capital, and prizes from Finnish verkkokauppa.com.
To participate, gather a team (1-5 people) and submit an idea by the end of March for one of the two tracks. You then have until May 5th to develop the idea before the meetup 27th May.
- Integration track: Enable MariaDB Vector in an existing open source project or AI-framework.
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We are excited to announce a hackathon with MariaDB Vector and Python. Since we are reaching outside our bubble, let’s start from the beginning:
MariaDB, the open-source database powers the world’s most demanding applications, from Wikipedia to global financial institutions. Now MariaDB Vector is bringing AI-ready vector search natively into the open-source database world. MySQL users ahoy:
Our hackathon is your chance to explore AI possibilities with MariaDB Vector and Python. Whether you’re a developer, data scientist, or AI enthusiast, MariaDB Foundation invites you to build innovative AI applications, compete for prizes, and showcase your work.
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Continue reading “Join our AI Hackathon with MariaDB Vector”
Confirming what you probably already expected: MariaDB Server 11.8 will be a long-term support release.
Now a Release Candidate – GA in May
With MariaDB Vector as the lead new feature, MariaDB 11.8 succeeds the previous LTS MariaDB 11.4 from a year ago.
As of now, MariaDB 11.8 is at the Release Candidate stage, with GA planned for May.
Lots of new features since MariaDB 11.4
MariaDB 11.8 has about 60 features, large and small, on top of the previous LTS, MariaDB 11.4. At our recent MariaDB Day on 1 Feb 2025 in Brussels, MariaDB Corporation Chief Architect Sergei Golubchik gave an overview of 11.8.
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Back from Brussels! With a bit of time to reflect, I’d like to share the aftertaste from our MariaDB Day, our very own FOSDEM Fringe Event. Prepare for an information-packed blog entry with links to the presentations, including live recordings and often the slide decks.
Billionaire controversy cancelled
Brussels during the first weekend of February is a hotbed of Open Source. The weather might not be hot, in contrast to the discussions in the corridors and rooms of the ULB university. The hottest topic expected – boycotting the presentation of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey – didn’t really happen.
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New Year’s Eve is when everyone takes stock of the year that has passed. At MariaDB Foundation, we’re no different.
The technical highlight: MariaDB Vector
It’s not hard to pick the technical MariaDB highlight of the year: It’s MariaDB Vector.
No big surprise there: The biggest new thing in IT is AI. AI is getting mainstream. Mainstream applications need databases. Databases need stability, performance, ease of use. And low cost.
The solution: MariaDB Server. It’s relational. It’s standard. It’s Open Source.
The business highlight: MariaDB plc on a solid footing
It’s equally easy to pick the business MariaDB highlight of the year: K1 taking over MariaDB plc.
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Continue reading “MariaDB highlights in 2024: Vectors, K1, and contributions”
As Chief Development Officer of the MariaDB Foundation, I’ve worked to ensure that our development efforts focus where they matter most. On this final day of 2024, I want to reflect on the significant technical achievements we’ve accomplished and the collaborative processes that made them possible.
Our work this year has been driven by the goal of building a stronger, more engaged MariaDB community. By sharing our progress and learnings, I hope to provide insights that may inspire and support other open-source projects.
Finally, I’ll outline the Foundation’s vision for 2025 and how we plan to bring it to life.
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We’re no mind readers, so from time to time, we like to do polls. Polls are quantitative in nature, so coming up with the right question is not enough – we need to do a bit of mind reading in coming up with the alternatives.
Quick development of text based RAG apps
Our hypothesis was that RAG is the cool thing to do with vector based databases, and specifically text based RAG. The conference talks we’ve given on MariaDB Vector (such as at the 24th SFSCON in Bozen, Südtirol, Italy on 8 Nov 2024) have stressed the value of easily being able to develop AI applications that answer user prompts based on knowledge in a specific text mass, not on the overall training data of an LLM.
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Continue reading “What do you expect from vector storage in databases?”