MariaDB Foundation to Safeguard Leading Open Source Database
- Michael ‘Monty’ Widenius, David Axmark, and Allan Larsson announce MariaDB Foundation
- Leading organizations pledge EUR1M to launch not-for-profit organization
- Further sponsors sought; Board elections to be held February 2013
Percona Live Conference, London – December 4, 2012 –The founders of the most popular databases on the web, Michael Widenius, David Axmark, and Allan Larsson today announced the formation of the MariaDB Foundation. “MariaDB continues the project started 18 years ago when we founded MySQL, with code maintained by the same dedicated core team. The time is right for an independent organisation to to safeguard the interests of MariaDB users and developers as we head towards MariaDB 10” said David Axmark.
“The MariaDB Foundation has the potential to become a new beacon for the MySQL ecosystem. SkySQL is pleased to support the Foundation, which can show leadership and continued evolution of the most widely used Open Source database.” said Patrik Sallner, CEO of SkySQL
Peter Zaitsev, co-founder of Percona said “We are delighted to support the MariaDB Foundation. We see the Foundation as a way of guaranteeing the stability and production engineering we need in the core code we share with so many other companies and users.”
Dan Shearer, veteran of the OpenChange and Samba teams added “Not only are databases increasingly embedded in infrastructure, but they are a means of expression. People engaged in genome research, public statistics bodies and open access data projects are concerned that their databases stay accessible for generations to come.Longevity is as much an issue as clustering and high availability.”
In its mission statement, the MariaDB Foundation exists to improve database technology, including standards implementation, interoperability with other databases, and building bridges to other types of database such as transactional and NoSQL. To deliver this the Foundation provides technical work in reviewing, merging, testing, and releasing the MariaDB product suite. The Foundation also provides infrastructure for the MariaDB project and the user and developer communities.
Monty Widenius is looking forward to an autonomous MariaDB Foundation. “Tens of millions of users rely on MariaDB and MySQL and they have more to thank than just all the excellent developers and persons helping to package and distribute MariaDB and MySQL. MariaDB exists thanks to the strength of the GPL and the efforts of the organizations who defend it such as our friends at the Software Freedom Conservancy and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The MariaDB Foundation will provide leadership on technical, legal, and policy matters of interest to all the community.”
About MariaDB
MariaDB is the compatible successor to MySQL, the world’s most popular Open Source database. MariaDB has greatly improved scalability and performance, engines for NoSQL and volume transaction processing, and clustering capability. The MariaDB client libraries are available under the liberal LGPL license, enabling a new generation of commercial applications. In a study by the 451 Group in May 2012, 85% of the companies surveyed were using MariaDB or MySQL data formats.
About the MariaDB Foundation
The MariaDB Foundation is a non-stock corporation that has applied for the US 501(c)(3) status, with so far 8 founders and 2 sponsors having pledged support, and more in discussion. In February 2013 the founders will appoint board members and confirm the bylaws. Until then the interim officers of the Foundation are:
- Andrew Katz, Chief Operating Officer and Legal Counsel
- Monty Widenius, Chief Technology Officer
- Niall McCarthy, Foundation Development
The Foundation welcomes new founders and sponsors. All enquiries to
foundation 'at' mariadb (dot) org.
MySQL is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
MariaDB is currently a registered trademark of Monty Program Ab.
All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
Good news! Good luck!
Is there an internetpresence of the foundation?
It’s coming. Hold on for some days still.
http://odba.org/
Oh, wait…
You stole my post. I was going to ask how the failed Open Database Alliance is related to this. I guess this foundation is a new start.
I’d be interested in seeing the mission of this corporation, because it seems like “an independent organisation to to safeguard
the interests of MariaDB users and developers as we head towards MariaDB
10” is extremely odd. It’s not independent if it’s founded by the same people who founded MariaDB, and if we can’t trust MariaDB with safeguarding interests of their users, why would we trust a not-for-profit to do the same?
If they mean “safeguarding the interests of MariaDB users and developers” from the OMG EVIL CLUTCHES OF ORACLE, then this starts to get into advocacy that may or may not be in the scope of a 501(c)3 organization. And even if they get 501(c)3 status, they have to be very careful to actually be independent from MariaDB the company (raise your hands if you think that’s going to happen) or they can lose their 501(c)3 status.
Good points! The foundation should not be confused with ODBA. Also, the Foundation is announced, not founded by the founders of MySQL AB. The foundation will have mainly companies, but also individuals as its founding members.
yes, at https://mariadb.org/en/foundation/
Hello,
Why not adding an identi.ca button on the foundation website? It
would be better than a twitter button.
identi.ca : a social microblogging service similar
to Twitter, built on open source tools and open standards.