[debian-mysql] [Maria-discuss] MySQL's future in Debian and Ubuntu

[Henrik Ingo]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 5:42 AM, Colin Charles <colin at montyprogram.com> wrote:
>> There is also a fourth MySQL fork: Percona Server. It is interesting
>> to note people in this thread and in general the Linux distro people
>> seem to omit this when talking about MySQL forks. As far as I'm aware
>> it is the most popular of the forks (after MySQL itself), and used by
>> many demanding Percona customers, especially the big and sexy Web
>> companies (but not only).
>
> I don't think this is a fair statement as MariaDB also has many popular users out there. Let's not make this a popularity contest either
>

I don't know how you mean it would be unfair, I think it is factually
true and relevant statement. It just seemed odd to read 20+ messages
about MySQL forks and people seemed to not be aware of the one that
most people used. I know MariaDB has lots of users (too), but if you
look at something like Planet MySQL, it seems the mindshare (people
who blog about it) is mainly within Monty Program and SkySQL employees
- and perhaps me as a former employee mentioning it occasionally :-)

This is not supposed to be an argument against using MariaDB, just
that the discussion seemed a bit uninformed when considering the
whole. FWIW I think most of the positive attributes of MariaDB have
been well represented in the thread already.

>> Out of these four it should first be mentioned that Drizzle is not at
>> all a compatible fork of MySQL. Some would say the things that are not
>> compatible are enhancements :-) But nevertheless, while Drizzle feels
>> very familiar to a MySQL user, you couldn't take away MySQL, drop in
>> Drizzle and expect that nobody would notice.
>
> Nobody? WordPress users for example, might (see: https://launchpad.net/wordpress-drizzle a plugin that you will require). I think there's a Drupal patch that's almost quite ready also...
>

It seems like you omitted "couldn't" while reading? But yes, that's
exactly the point.

> MariaDB 5.5 beta should be out by the end of this month.

Yes, but that was also said last Summer. Let's just stick with what we
have on the table.

> What should also be taken into consideration is support for an existing GA release. I've asked Percona (Stewart Smith, Director, Server Development) what the plans are and generally Percona will officially support 2 GA releases just like Oracle. Unless a customer asks for it, there wouldn't be a fix. LTS releases might I remind you need 5 years of support.  Percona Server 5.1 will remain supported till Percona Server 5.6 is released, and beyond that, its just a customer request possibly. There is no defined policy yet to be fair
>

[needs citation]

http://www.mysql.com/support/
Maintenance Releases, Bug Fixes, Patches, Updates:  1-5 Years and 6-8
Years w Extended support

So it is 5 years just like it's always been (since MySQL 5.0 at least).

Just like with the original topic of this thread, Oracle does not
state anything about the Community version, but I don't have any
information that they would have started dropping support earlier for
that. Until Oracle took over Community version was supported for the
same 5 years, and since MySQL 5.1 the support is actually better since
there are more frequent updates!


> This alpha feature is very interesting, but the idea of having a 3-node cluster pitches this as a NDB replacement rather than just a MySQL replacement.

This is only true if you think the NDB engine is a good replacement
for InnoDB. We always had to work hard to advocate against such
misconceptions when I was selling NDB. But it is true that the quality
of HA properties is comparable to NDB cluster.

To stay consistent with my own propositions above, I suppose I
shouldn't say that "I'm sure it will be GA next month" :-)

>But as an aside, I do agree with you - I am totally stoked with the Galera technology coming out of Codership!
>

Yes. And the main value is that it enhances the level of HA *for
InnoDB*. Anyway, it was just another example why Percona should be
considered, as they are often seen driving the state of the art in
MySQL, such as with this example.

henrik

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