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Red Hat Software Databases Open Source Linux

Red Hat Ditches MySQL, Switches To MariaDB 203

Posted by Soulskill from the market-share-sinking dept.
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."
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Red Hat Ditches MySQL, Switches To MariaDB More

Red Hat Ditches MySQL, Switches To MariaDB

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  • MariaDB? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @10:15AM (#44006641)

    I use unencrypted XML and CSV files you insensitive clod!

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The interesting part is: will Oracle's copy of RHEL include the change to use MariaDB?

      Or will they 'fork' to keep their own MySQL?

      Wish I was a fly on the wall @ oracle when this gets discussed :)

  • Red Hat (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArcadeMan ( 2766669 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @10:16AM (#44006665)

    We're nobody's bitch.

  • MySQL is Dead! Just like Cobol (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WaywardGeek ( 1480513 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @10:21AM (#44006731) Journal

    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: (Score:3)

      by Tridus ( 79566 )

      If it's really dead like Cobol, I could spend the rest of my life doing nothing but supporting stuff using it, and make a pretty good career out of it.

      That's a kind of death I can live with.

    • Re:MySQL is Dead! Just like Cobol (Score:4, Informative)

      by greg1104 ( 461138 ) <gsmith@gregsmith.com> on Friday June 14, 2013 @10:35AM (#44006917) Homepage

      MySQL filled a niche for web application development, but not very much else. The large banks are all using old-school commercial databases: Oracle, DB2, Sybase, SQL Server. Government applications prefer PostgreSQL because of its permissive license. If they want to customize the source code for a project that isn't pubic, they can do that without having to worry about GPL compliance.

      • If they want to customize the source code for a project that isn't pubic, they can do that without having to worry about GPL compliance.

        I worked on one of those and man, it was hairy. In the end we pulled it off, but it was a close shave.

    • Re:MySQL is Dead! Just like Cobol (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Intrepid imaginaut ( 1970940 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @10:39AM (#44006947)

      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: (Score:3)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        There is nothing you tell the client. You dump the DB out of mysql and load it in maria.

        Not like they are switching to something not compatible.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by dave420 ( 699308 )
          It's not even that complicated for most users - simply shut down MySQL, point MariaDB to the MySQL configuration, start MariaDB, and that's it.

        • Who's going to pay for this effort again?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

            The customers, via their normal bill.

            The servers have to be upgraded at some point, EOL and all. The service provider will at that point move to mariaDB and not even tell the customer.

            • You clearly have no experience with web development. Most of the sites on the internet are in shared hosting packages, anything that gets less than a few hundred thousand hits a month. The only thing these sites are charged for are hosting and domain names. Anything that involves any kind of effort on the part of the developer gets charged for seperately. Hosting companies are quite capable of keeping the same software on new servers indefinetely.

              Honestly I'm not seeing anyone flocking to the flag of the gu

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

                You are clearly full of it.

                New servers will not run old versions of MySQL at some point. This means they will have to decide if they want to install new MySQL or MariaDB. That is when the latter will go into place since it is the redhat standard.

                • Except Red Hat covers a grand total of 2.8% of the market and dropping rapidly. http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/os-redhat/all/all [w3techs.com]

                  I don't feel obligated in any way to support MariaDB. I don't see how any self respecting dev would, especially since the founder made himself richer than Croseus by selling MySQL.

                  So good luck with that.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

                    What do you think the majority of those unknown UNIX sites are running on?

                    Think really hard, now.
                    It is going to be RHEL, Centos or Debian. All of them will be on MariaDB fairly soon.

                    Having the webserver not report the OS is pretty simple to do.

                  • Well, there is more to life than web servers. In fact, databases shouldn't run on web servers if they have serious amounts of data, they should be on their own hardware. Speaking of Redhat, you need to include CentOS with Redhat, since it's essentially the free version.

                    Usage statistics and market share of Linux for websites [w3techs.com]

                    using this page, RedHat + CentOS = 35.6% of websites using various subcategories of Linux. You should also include Scientific Linux, but it's only less than 0.1%.

                    Drilling down,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 )

      I've worked for several government deparments and large banks.
      IBM mainframe uses DB2, everything else uses Oracle. No exceptions (atleast as far as databases supporting SQL goes).

    • 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.

      MySQL has too big of a momentum to just disappear (and the people keeping it alive are not governments and large banks, but rather web developers).

      I'm a full-time web developer and I am just starting a new project and tossing a coin between MySQL and Postgresql. The reason why I am even considering MySQL is that all my existing code and libraries are thoroughly tested with it. Even brand spanking new projects use old libraries :)

      In theory, database abstraction layer should be good enough to make everything

      • Not sure which libraries you're referring to, but pgsql has a lot to offer.. A lot of libraries for more data types than mysql supports. As for sequences, you may want to consider a UUID/GUID field for your primary keys in non-log tables.. yes, the indexing is slightly slower, but more portable to other systems and support for replication, and distributed data is a *lot* better. You also get the benefit of being able to generate the ID in your code, instead of relying on a return value for the data record

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dejanc ( 1528235 )

          Sometimes it's good to start fresh.. also, if you have good unit tests for your utilities then "testing" should be easy.. if you don't, then are they really well tested?

          In theory, very true. In practice, it's an uneasy feeling of switching to a new tool, no matter what it is. Unit tests exist and are useful, but I still haven't mastered writing bug-free code despite all the testing :)

          Every time I've had to use/touch MySQL, it has been extremely frustrating, and far more so than any other DB I've worked with (Firebird, Oracle, MS-SQL, DB2, SQLite, etc), with the exception of SQLite they've all been far more capable as well.

          I don't doubt that's the case, but as usual with these things - you probably use MySQL the least and are least comfortable with it. In the last 5-6 years, I only ever deployed significant projects on top of MySQL or PostgreSQL, and while PGSQL was always more capable (and I personally enjoyed

  • Oracle Doesn't Care (Score:5, Insightful)

    by organgtool ( 966989 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @11:34AM (#44007453)

    but I'm pretty sure this move won't make Oracle any happier

    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.

  • Great in theory (Score:3)

    by houbou ( 1097327 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @11:36AM (#44007497) Journal
    Seems like MariaDB is the greatest thing after sliced bread, but, unless you are running your own server, many hosting services are still offering mySQL as the DB to use. I was going to check out MariaDB, but for now, unless I have a requirement from a client, it doesn't seem like its worth my time to use. It is still a WAMP and LAMP world out there for the most part.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      you might still check it out.
      it's the same thing, with some new stuff / new stuff coming that you might need.

      but "not worth my time" attitude is kinda strange since it takes no time at all to use it?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hweimer ( 709734 )

      That's why this announcement by Red Hat is so important, it means that RHEL/CentOS-based hosters are likely to make the switch to MariaDB when they upgrade their systems.

    • MariaDB is a drop in replacement for mySQL... the difference being is more development is going into MariaDB than mySQL's remains.

  • A company called Computer Associates used to be where formerly successful commercial apps went to die a slow, painful death.

    Now Oracle is where OSS branches goes to die a slow, painful death.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      Not just OSS. Commercial products too. Oracle is pretty good at paying billion(s) for a company then alienating all its developers until the product is only a shell of what it used to be.

  • I've been looking for an excuse to make the switch. And this does it for me. I'll be switched by the end of the year.

  • Love MariaDB with only one complaint (Score:4, Informative)

    by EmperorOfCanada ( 1332175 ) on Friday June 14, 2013 @12:20PM (#44008133)
    I made the switch and couldn't be happier. I haven't done an official speed comparison but it seems that MariaDB is much more responsive. That tiny little ms counter in Sequel Pro is showing much shorter times for routine tasks.

    But the fulltext indexing is not available to the default table engine. That is my one complaint.

    I would be curious to know what the insider thinking is at Oracle. I suspect they thought they had the free database crowd by the balls. No doubt they had all kinds of interesting long term strategies to switch companies over from MySQL to overpriced Oracle products. Now those strategies are going to fade into nothingness.

  • MariaBD is something of a lame name. Its gonna be harder to pitch/sell than the well named 'MySQL'..

    • It makes sense in Scandinavia, because MySQL was named after the female name My (Monty's daughter along with Maria), not the English possessive pronoun. As for the pronunciation, think about how New Yorkers pronounce "New York" -- there's the Scandinavian "Ny" (meaning "new").

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