CloudFest Reflections by mariadb.org

CloudFest in Germany, what an event! Thousands of representatives of cloud service providers and the surrounding ecosystem. Although MariaDB Server seems to be the database of choice in this realm, 2023 was the first year when we were more extensively present for CloudFest.

Check out our 11:19 long video with Monty’s and my reflections!

Chat with our founder Monty, Michael Widenius

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Creating the MariaDB Health Check plugin for WordPress

Congratulations, MRDB – MariaDB plc!

Today, MariaDB Corporation announced that it completed its merger, landing on NYSE as “MRDB”. With MariaDB Corporation being our founding member as well as our primary code contributor, we want to congratulate what is now MariaDB plc for this remarkable achievement.

Joint goals

MariaDB Foundation and MariaDB Corporation, while independent entities, share a joint interest in the development and adoption of MariaDB Server. In the new scenario with what is now to be referred to as MariaDB plc being a publicly traded company, we expect further interest in MariaDB Server by the ecosystem and community.

An intra-pandemic Staff Meeting

Well over two years ago was the last time the MariaDB Foundation staff had met. That was at FOSDEM, in February 2020. Thus, no big surprise, one of our topmost goals for 2022 was to have a staff meeting, face to face. It’s about time to oil the social relationships, to work together without connection issues, to be reminded of how work and life can be in a world where Covid isn’t the top issue.

In other words: we planned a post-pandemic Staff Meeting.

The outcome was different. 

Choosing the venue

But let us start from the beginning, from the original euforia.

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.

China Has Great Potential for MariaDB Server

Our Board Meeting in April 2022 elected two seasoned new voting board members. One of them is Xiang Peng (Sean), Director, RDS Open Source Databases at Alibaba Cloud. I had the pleasure of having a Fireside Chat with him, which we recorded and put up on YouTube. Read on for his recommendations for MariaDB Foundation in China.

A Man With the Right CV for MariaDB Foundation

Sean, as he calls himself for those of us who have problems remembering, reading or writing his real name 彭祥, is a great resource for MariaDB Foundation.

Business As Unusual, Part II

On the last day of the year, let me share a few thoughts in hindsight on a year that didn’t turn out as anyone expected. The outcome: Not everyone was as lucky as MariaDB Foundation. The pandemic takes longer than expected, and mixes the deck of winners and losers. Sure, most of us lose, a lot. But the forced break can provide lessons for a better post-pandemic life (and business).

Picture: Sanna Marin, PM of Finland, CC BY 4.0 Laura Kotila/Statsrådets kansli 2019 via Wikimedia Commons

Two early pandemic blog entries in March

Background: In March this year (which sometimes feels like yesterday, sometimes like ages ago), I wrote two blog entries about the strange situation caused by the Corona pandemic.

A GSoC internship with the MariaDB Foundation

Introduction

Hi, my name is Kartik Soneji, and I am a second year student at Thadomal Shahani Engineering College, Mumbai. I have been programming since the age of 13. I started out with Java, then learnt a little C++ before diving head first into web development with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I also programmed a bit in Python and Rust to see what all the hype was about.

My primary motivation to contribute to the open source community is because I strongly believe in the idea that software is free, to copy, modify and study.