Red Hat Ditches MySQL, Switches To MariaDB 203
An anonymous reader writes "Red Hat will switch the default database in its enterprise distribution, RHEL, from MySQL to MariaDB, when version 7 is released. MySQL's first employee in Australia, Arjen Lentz, said Fedora and OpenSuSE were community driven, whereas RHEL's switch to MariaDB was a corporate decision with far-reaching implications. 'I presume there is not much love lost between Red Hat and Oracle (particularly since the "Oracle Linux" stuff started) but I'm pretty sure this move won't make Oracle any happier,' said Lentz, who now runs his own consultancy, Open Query, from Queensland. 'Thus it's a serious move in political terms.' He said that in practical terms, MariaDB should now get much more of a public footprint with people (people knowing about MariaDB and it being a/the replacement for MySQL), and direct acceptance both by individual users and corporates."
MySQL is Dead! Just like Cobol (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, is anyone out there in geek land even considering MySQL for a brand spanking new project with no history attached to MySQL? I don't know of any. It's just a matter of time now for things to swing from MySQL to MariaDB, though I think a lot of geeks will take a good look at other options like PostgreSQL before switching. Unless Oracle does something really interesting with MySQL, it's dead... seriously... no one in the year 2120 will even remember MySQL except for unfortunate geeks working for the government and large banks who will continue doing new projects with MySQL until the end of time.
Re:Oracle Linux is identical to RHEL (Score:5, Insightful)
The main thing Oracle Linux does is run a newer kernel version than the RHEL kernel. RHEL6 for example is based on 2.6.32, while Oracle's Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel R.2 [oracle.com] (pdf) was running 3.0.16 when they last updated things.
Grabbing the newer kernel lets Oracle win direct performance shootouts against RedHat. They can get away with it because the only applications they're testing on it is Oracle, so if the upstream kernel breaks other things they don't care. RedHat cares about all of their supported software, so they have a lot more QA issues to deal with. Note that this little trick is also how Oracle has gotten around caring that RedHat made it harder to see what individual patches they apply to the upstream kernel in their release. They aren't using that version of kernel at all, so whatever RedHat is doing to customer their 2.6.32 branch they're ignoring.
Of course, if you're willing to do this, you can easily grab a newer Linux kernel from kernel.org yourself on regular RHEL, too. The game Oracle is playing with "Unbreakable Linux" is all marketing hype.
Re:3, 2, 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a victory for Free Software as a whole. We can argue about ACID tests another day.
Congrats to the MariaDB team for making quality fork and fulfilling the dream of the GPL: that WHEN corporations try to buy/take our code we'll simply route around the damage.
Good job Gentlemen.
Re:MySQL is Dead! Just like Cobol (Score:4, Insightful)
Many hosting packages have MySQL installed as default, almost all of them in fact, and web devs are unlikely to have any interest in moving. I mean what are they going to tell their clients, someone in a far away office unconnected to anything has decided that the DB system is outdated, so you have pay us to migrate your data? Oh, says the client, will it offer me any benefits or will my site stop working? Why no, says the web dev. Please.
Inertia means a lot, and MySQL has a LOT of inertia.
Re:3, 2, 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, why not? MySQL is crap. MySQL is crap [arstechnica.com]. 10 years later, MySQL is still crap. MariaDB and Percona are less crap, but still crap.
Oracle is on-par with PostgreSQL, with some drawbacks, and you can argue and haggle--personally I think Oracle is inferior, but you'll get dissenters and they *are* in the same class. MS SQL Server is inferior--it's a good product in its space, but its space is a subset space of PostgreSQL. More to the point, Oracle and MS SQL Server are both closed, proprietary pay-ware; PostgreSQL, MySQL, DB2, and SQLite are free. That means the argument is essentially PostgreSQL vs MySQL.
PostgreSQL actually functions like a real database (MySQL does a lot of crap it shouldn't), outperforms MySQL, has working replication now (FINALLY, since around 8.0-ish, a few short years back), has BETTER replication than MySQL, and is about as easy to set up (I learned it in about 30 minutes). In general it's a better product as a database. Since it has no real drawbacks besides blunt protocol compatibility (i.e. a MySQL-specific app can't talk to PostgreSQL, either because of network presentation protocol (MySQL protocol 3306) or application protocol (MySQL-specific command language)) compared to MySQL, and many advantages, it's essentially a higher-quality and thus better piece of software.
Optimally, RedHat, Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE, etc should provide the best MySQL possible--Percona, MariaDB, whatever--while providing the guideline that PostgreSQL is a better product. Because, hell, they're already endorsing by dumping MySQL instead of simply including both Percona and MariaDB. The issue is that the political chip of saying, "X is better than Y," is very volatile. We could sit here and hash out merits and come to that exact conclusion--but even then, when we're all convinced that this is FACT and not OPINION, what do you think would happen if RedHat and Ubuntu both flatly said, "Use PostgreSQL, MySQL is crap"?
Re:3, 2, 1 (Score:2, Insightful)
If you buy web hosting from a cheap cpanel-based provider, you get MySQL for free and it's hard to set up anything else. Moreover, a moderately skilled web developer can get a database-driven site set up in just a couple of minutes with PHP+MySQL.
MySQL+PHP is popular for the same reason VB6 used to be popular. It's quick and easy and it gets stuff done. Elite computer scientists look down upon both because they are perceived as quick and dirty hacks. But that doesn't matter; for many applications, a quick and dirty hack is good enough.
Re:think I can petition my college to.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Teaching you LAMP?
Teaching any programs is foolish, they should teach that you need an OS, a webserver, a db and a language for your site. Knowing the basics will let you easily work on many stacks.
Re:3, 2, 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that they were the ones who sold MySQL to Oracle in the first place, right ?
No. Open source people never sold MySQL to Oracle.
What happened is that Monty sold MySQL to Sun, with a clause that it must not be sold to Oracle.
Oracle then bought Sun.
Oracle Doesn't Care (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure Oracle couldn't care less if RedHat uses MySQL or MariaDB since it doesn't benefit greatly from either. Oracle would much rather have everyone using Oracle DB since that is where they put most of their development and support efforts and that is what makes them their money. I don't think Oracle would even continue to offer MySQL support if they weren't ordered to do so under the conditions of their buyout of Sun.
Re:3, 2, 1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, why not? MySQL is crap. MySQL is crap [arstechnica.com]. 10 years later, MySQL is still crap. MariaDB and Percona are less crap, but still crap.
You must not be a sysadmin. Everything is crap, and the job is to find out what oozes least amount of crappiness for the job at hand.
In some cases, that is MySQL (or now MariaDB). Despite being crap.