11 ms·

Alibaba is leading a $27M investment in MariaDB

399 points by doppp 9y ago

unixhero 9y ago
Strange, why not go for postgres
- autotune 9y ago
  Probably because they don't use it: http://techstacks.io/alibaba http://techstacks.io/alibaba
  - zerr 9y ago
    What's the reason nowadays to use MySQL/MariaDB instead of PostgreSQL?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - richardknop 9y ago
      That question could be asked in a reversed fashion too. PostgreSQL is the favorite database here on HN (I prefer it too) but for a generic company out there MySQL/PostgreSQL are interchangeable. Won't really matter which one you choose and I think it's easier to hire people with MySQL experience.
    - mdnormy 9y ago
      Familiarity? MySQL/MariaDB is pretty much the "standard" database that most programmer started with. At least in university. So there is no point on using PosgreSQL if MariaDB fits the bill for them. Less learning curve, easy to hire for etc
      - jstarfish 9y ago
        Also the default database on most shared hosting, so anybody who got a start in web dev likely cut their teeth on MySQL.
        type0 9y ago
        Yeah, LAMP stacks are to blame for it's popularity.
      - takeda 9y ago
        I actually had databases class which used MySQL for exercises and essentially it was like this: * you can configure triggers for a table, but you can't use them in MySQL unless you make sure the table is InnoDB (this was a while ago before defaults changed) * MySQL doesn't support aborting INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE from trigger, but you can emulate it by throwing an exception * a table can have a CHECK constraint, but you can't use it because it is not available in MySQL Makes one wonder MySQL was picked for that class. I get that it was because it was very popular at the time, but it felt like a toy compared to a functionality that any other database had.
      - technion 9y ago
        University? I'm interested in what people's experiences here are. I spent the entire of my degree deep in Oracle, persistently being warned a database without object-relational queries were absolutely never used in the real world (how ironic).
    - icelancer 9y ago
      In-memory capability, hiring pool of MySQL/MariaDB developers tends to be larger/wider, Galera cluster (M-M functionality), if the queries trend towards simplicity then MySQL/MariaDB tends to be more performant, Postgres can have issues with write amplification, etc. Uber (I know, I know) switched to MySQL, here are some reasons why: https://eng.uber.com/mysql-migration/ https://eng.uber.com/mysql-migration/
      - netcraft 9y ago
        can you elaborate on the in-memory capabilities you mention? My google searches aren't yielding anything.
        j_s 9y ago
        https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/memory-storage-engine.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/memory-storage-engin... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10692398/how-do-i-make-a-mysql-database-run-completely-in-memory https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10692398/how-do-i-make-a... https://www.google.com/search?q=mysql+in-memory https://www.google.com/search?q=mysql+in-memory maybe?
        netcraft 9y ago
        I'm aware of the memory capabilities of mysql in general, but the insinuation was that mysql had more capabilities of in-memory processing than postgres - I dont see anything in those links that are things that postgres cant do - although they may be implemented differently.
        haimez 9y ago
        The honest answer is that you can get the desired result with Postgres, even if it might require a custom foreign data wrapper implementation. Carpenters pick their favorite saws, and they like MySQL. To be fair, uber did get burned by a Postgres replication failure- but they also had a NOC team promote 3 bad replicas to primary before stepping back to reconsider their approach. Carpenters do hate losing their fingers in circular saws.
    - Thaxll 9y ago
      MySQL is faster. There are people that will argue against it but they probably don't understand how the vacuum works. Also if you only read HN yeah you're bias on Postgres vs MySQL. On the end Postgres is "better" but MySQL is already pretty good, it's not like you're comparing a good product to a bad one, both of them are good.
      - qaq 9y ago
        InnoDB is MVCC too
- frik 9y ago
  Postgres has toxic fanboys. Instead of going for closed source competition like Oracle, DB2, MSSQL where Postgres is a valuable competitor, these really stupid fanboys go for friendly open source databases. Unfortunately toxic Postgres fanboys do this for 15+ years. How about try to convert the "hard part" (enterprise), not the friendly minded ones.
svisser 9y ago
For context, Alibaba uses their own fork of MySQL which is AliSQL: https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL
- smaili 9y ago
  I'm curious what would be their motivation for investing so much in MariaDB when they already have their own? Hedging bets? Encouraging competition?
  - Footkerchief 9y ago
    Their Github indicates there's cross-pollination: > Moreover, it includes patches from Percona, WebScaleSQL, and MariaDB.
  - buahahaha 9y ago
    Getting out of the business of having their own?
    - dward 9y ago
      With Alibaba cloud, infrastructure like databases is their business. Take AWS Aurora and GCP Spanner as examples.
      - andreasklinger 9y ago
        But it's also easier to sell a standard DB people already know vs a custom (see (google) Bigtable vs (amazon) Postgres)
        aoeusnth1 9y ago
        Those aren't exactly comparable products - also, is it obvious which one sells better? Is it well known that amazon postgres sells like hotcakes?
        darkr 9y ago
jdhawk 9y ago
Good for MariaDB - they're really pushing the MySQL ecosystem forward at an incredible pace. RocksDB from Facebook, ColumnStore, MaxScale...really cool stuff.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jjirsa 9y ago
Good move, will be good for the database for sure. I think of this article [0] every time someone says "why not just use <some hipster database written by 2 people over the course of a year>": Rule 1: Developing a good DBMS requires 5-7 years and tens of millions of dollars. That’s if things go extremely well. Rule 2: You aren’t an exception to Rule 1. 0: http://www.dbms2.com/2013/03/18/dbms-development-marklogic-hadoop/ http://www.dbms2.com/2013/03/18/dbms-development-marklogic-h...
- orf 9y ago
  Has Postgres received tens of millions of dollars in funding?
  - felixge 9y ago
    Yes, I think different companies invested that over the years. But perhaps more importantly it’s been 20+ years of development.
  - olympus 9y ago
    Not sure about the funding, but it has been around for 20+ years. Maybe not tens of millions in VC funding, but it definitely has tens of millions of dollars worth of devs spending time on it.
  - jpollock 9y ago
    If you assume an average 10 person years of development effort over the 20 year history of Postgres, absolutely. 20 years * LoadedLaborCost (USD$150k/personyr) * 10 people =>USD$30m.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - deverant 9y ago
    I'd assume the amount of work contributed to PostgreSQL by people while being paid by companies to do so is substantial. I think you could relate that to funding?
gaius 9y ago
Wow. Monty made a cool billion from Sun. Why does he need external investors now? How can MariaDB possibly have blown through that epic fortune?
- bpicolo 9y ago
  Same reason plenty of rich people take investment for their own companies?
- jamesblonde 9y ago
  He only made 300m. Us other MySQL employees (about 250) shared crumbs for that purchase (VPs excepted). He screwed us, but he never had respect for us - "people are lazy and greedy" (https://www.pythian.com/blog/mysql-ceo-marten-mickos-interviewed/ https://www.pythian.com/blog/mysql-ceo-marten-mickos-intervi...) . Then he promised he would fix the mistake he made with Maria by being more generous. Ha.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Funny use of the word 'only'.
  - johansch 9y ago
    Sad to hear that. Being an employee mostly sucks in Sweden. (If you put some (throwaway?) contact email in your profile I'd be interested to trade stories/old gossip via phone over the weekend; it seems like we worked in similar markets over similar times.)
  - paraxisi 9y ago
    Here's the actual interview less the blogspam http://archive.fortune.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/mysql_greatteams_fortune/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/mysq...
- KGIII 9y ago
  If you make a fortune and then turn around and invest that fortune into a new project, you no longer have your fortune. Meaning, he's probably limited his investments into the new company.
osrec 9y ago
Really very happy about this. I would love for MariaDB to outpace MySQL in terms of features, as I'm never quite sure which direction Oracle will take with MySQL (especially in terms of licensing)!
- stephenr 9y ago
  It’s ironic in a tragic way that people fear monger about Oracle changing the MySQL license (which has not changed from before Monty sold it to Sun) and advocate for a fork operated by a company that shits on the very concept of open source. If the MariaDB MaxScale licensing bullshittery didn’t make you think twice about relying on MariaDB, why do you worry about Oracle?
ppeetteerr 9y ago
Any time I hear that a Chinese company is investing in a product I use, it's as if the Chinese government is now part owner of it as well. This may be general paranoia, but given the latest crackdown on VPNs and privacy, I don't know that I want a foreign government with a significant stake in Alibaba have access to direct the future of MariaDB. Is anyone else feeling this?
- gnbfrdjng 9y ago
  What would the concrete concern be in this case? Any backdoor would destroy the company brand and be excised immediately in a fork. I suspect they’ll treat it like a piece of critical infrastructure; their political concerns would be at the gfw level, and I just don’t see the likelihood of weaponized attacks. Databases are usually locked down for egress and any outgoing attempts would be rapidly detected.
  - finnh 9y ago
    > excised immediately Only if the backdoor is obvious. I doubt they would introduce a backdoor that reads `if ($PWD = "supersecretbackdoorpwd") loginAs("root");` But a subtle buffer overrun resulting in a 0day that's only obvious to the writers - that's much more likely. Check out the Underhanded C contest for examples of ways exploits can hide in plain sight. EDIT: I'm not saying that's what going to happen with Alibaba & MariaDb. I'm just saying that "open source" != "free of exploits and backdoors". One of the biggest untruths about open source is that, with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
    - gnbfrdjng 9y ago
      The backdoor would either be obvious (ie make outgoing connections) or it would have debatable value (maybe a killswitch?)
  - mtgx 9y ago
    Lenovo seems to get caught with a backdoor every 6 months or so lately. Although I do think that has tainted its brand, I think it's still pretty far off from "destroying the brand".
jim_d 9y ago
happy to see MariaDB getting some investment, hoping it will continue growing.
snowman311 9y ago
Just looked through the Crunchbase profiles of a few Western SQL/NoSQL database companies, and I did not see any Chinese investors. This investment will certainly give MariaDB a significant competitive advantage in China. It will be interesting to see if other startups follow their strategy.
starrychloe 9y ago
Chinese government is leading a $27M infiltration, code injection, and backdoor scheme in MariaDB in order to steal and hack account information for millions of sites around the world.
- whooshee 9y ago
  Proofs? or you are just another troll.
cwyers 9y ago
I don't really understand the MariaDB love around here. If you look at actual production usage, MySQL gets the lion's share, looking at the customers each lists at their website. Oracle has been surprisingly benevolent as stewards of MySQL. That Business Source License that MariaDB put forward for new code at one point[1] looked like something I think would have cost an awful lot of goodwill if anyone else had used it. 1) https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb
- jzawodn 9y ago
  "surprisingly benevolent" eh? I'm guessing you've not been a paying customer with outstanding bug reports?
  - cwyers 9y ago
    Given what I expected Oracle to do to MySQL, if being late on fixing bug reports under a support contract is the worst of their sins, then I stand by my statement.
- noncoml 9y ago
  Actually: - MariaDB MaxScale 2.0 will be under the BSL. - MariaDB Server will continue to be licensed under GPL in perpetuity, while its connectors will continue to be under the LGPL. To be honest I cannot blame Monty. Google and Facebook were built on MySQL and probably didn't give back as much as he thought would be a fair shar. I guess he doesn't want to see this happening again.
  - stephenr 9y ago
    He’s free to do what he wants with his company. The problem is all these people going into headless chicken mode about how Oracle could discontinue the open source licence of the “original” MySQL, so they’re embracing MariaDB (the company) because it’s run by Monty so it must be open source friendly. You can use/support MariaDB all you want but let’s not pretend they’re great bastions of open source compared to Oracle in the MySQL realm.

399 points by doppp 9y ago

unixhero 9y ago

Strange, why not go for postgres

autotune 9y ago
Probably because they don't use it: http://techstacks.io/alibaba http://techstacks.io/alibaba
- zerr 9y ago
  What's the reason nowadays to use MySQL/MariaDB instead of PostgreSQL?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - richardknop 9y ago
    That question could be asked in a reversed fashion too. PostgreSQL is the favorite database here on HN (I prefer it too) but for a generic company out there MySQL/PostgreSQL are interchangeable. Won't really matter which one you choose and I think it's easier to hire people with MySQL experience.
  - mdnormy 9y ago
    Familiarity? MySQL/MariaDB is pretty much the "standard" database that most programmer started with. At least in university. So there is no point on using PosgreSQL if MariaDB fits the bill for them. Less learning curve, easy to hire for etc
    - jstarfish 9y ago
      Also the default database on most shared hosting, so anybody who got a start in web dev likely cut their teeth on MySQL.
      - type0 9y ago
        Yeah, LAMP stacks are to blame for it's popularity.
    - takeda 9y ago
      I actually had databases class which used MySQL for exercises and essentially it was like this: * you can configure triggers for a table, but you can't use them in MySQL unless you make sure the table is InnoDB (this was a while ago before defaults changed) * MySQL doesn't support aborting INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE from trigger, but you can emulate it by throwing an exception * a table can have a CHECK constraint, but you can't use it because it is not available in MySQL Makes one wonder MySQL was picked for that class. I get that it was because it was very popular at the time, but it felt like a toy compared to a functionality that any other database had.
    - technion 9y ago
      University? I'm interested in what people's experiences here are. I spent the entire of my degree deep in Oracle, persistently being warned a database without object-relational queries were absolutely never used in the real world (how ironic).
  - icelancer 9y ago
    In-memory capability, hiring pool of MySQL/MariaDB developers tends to be larger/wider, Galera cluster (M-M functionality), if the queries trend towards simplicity then MySQL/MariaDB tends to be more performant, Postgres can have issues with write amplification, etc. Uber (I know, I know) switched to MySQL, here are some reasons why: https://eng.uber.com/mysql-migration/ https://eng.uber.com/mysql-migration/
    - netcraft 9y ago
      can you elaborate on the in-memory capabilities you mention? My google searches aren't yielding anything.
      - j_s 9y ago
        https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/memory-storage-engine.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/memory-storage-engin... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10692398/how-do-i-make-a-mysql-database-run-completely-in-memory https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10692398/how-do-i-make-a... https://www.google.com/search?q=mysql+in-memory https://www.google.com/search?q=mysql+in-memory maybe?
        netcraft 9y ago
        I'm aware of the memory capabilities of mysql in general, but the insinuation was that mysql had more capabilities of in-memory processing than postgres - I dont see anything in those links that are things that postgres cant do - although they may be implemented differently.
        haimez 9y ago
        The honest answer is that you can get the desired result with Postgres, even if it might require a custom foreign data wrapper implementation. Carpenters pick their favorite saws, and they like MySQL. To be fair, uber did get burned by a Postgres replication failure- but they also had a NOC team promote 3 bad replicas to primary before stepping back to reconsider their approach. Carpenters do hate losing their fingers in circular saws.
  - Thaxll 9y ago
    MySQL is faster. There are people that will argue against it but they probably don't understand how the vacuum works. Also if you only read HN yeah you're bias on Postgres vs MySQL. On the end Postgres is "better" but MySQL is already pretty good, it's not like you're comparing a good product to a bad one, both of them are good.
    - qaq 9y ago
      InnoDB is MVCC too
frik 9y ago
Postgres has toxic fanboys. Instead of going for closed source competition like Oracle, DB2, MSSQL where Postgres is a valuable competitor, these really stupid fanboys go for friendly open source databases. Unfortunately toxic Postgres fanboys do this for 15+ years. How about try to convert the "hard part" (enterprise), not the friendly minded ones.

svisser 9y ago

For context, Alibaba uses their own fork of MySQL which is AliSQL: https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL https://github.com/alibaba/AliSQL

smaili 9y ago
I'm curious what would be their motivation for investing so much in MariaDB when they already have their own? Hedging bets? Encouraging competition?
- Footkerchief 9y ago
  Their Github indicates there's cross-pollination: > Moreover, it includes patches from Percona, WebScaleSQL, and MariaDB.
- buahahaha 9y ago
  Getting out of the business of having their own?
  - dward 9y ago
    With Alibaba cloud, infrastructure like databases is their business. Take AWS Aurora and GCP Spanner as examples.
    - andreasklinger 9y ago
      But it's also easier to sell a standard DB people already know vs a custom (see (google) Bigtable vs (amazon) Postgres)
      - aoeusnth1 9y ago
        Those aren't exactly comparable products - also, is it obvious which one sells better? Is it well known that amazon postgres sells like hotcakes?
      - darkr 9y ago

jdhawk 9y ago

Good for MariaDB - they're really pushing the MySQL ecosystem forward at an incredible pace. RocksDB from Facebook, ColumnStore, MaxScale...really cool stuff.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jjirsa 9y ago

Good move, will be good for the database for sure. I think of this article [0] every time someone says "why not just use <some hipster database written by 2 people over the course of a year>": Rule 1: Developing a good DBMS requires 5-7 years and tens of millions of dollars. That’s if things go extremely well. Rule 2: You aren’t an exception to Rule 1. 0: http://www.dbms2.com/2013/03/18/dbms-development-marklogic-hadoop/ http://www.dbms2.com/2013/03/18/dbms-development-marklogic-h...

orf 9y ago
Has Postgres received tens of millions of dollars in funding?
- felixge 9y ago
  Yes, I think different companies invested that over the years. But perhaps more importantly it’s been 20+ years of development.
- olympus 9y ago
  Not sure about the funding, but it has been around for 20+ years. Maybe not tens of millions in VC funding, but it definitely has tens of millions of dollars worth of devs spending time on it.
- jpollock 9y ago
  If you assume an average 10 person years of development effort over the 20 year history of Postgres, absolutely. 20 years * LoadedLaborCost (USD$150k/personyr) * 10 people =>USD$30m.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- deverant 9y ago
  I'd assume the amount of work contributed to PostgreSQL by people while being paid by companies to do so is substantial. I think you could relate that to funding?

gaius 9y ago

Wow. Monty made a cool billion from Sun. Why does he need external investors now? How can MariaDB possibly have blown through that epic fortune?

bpicolo 9y ago
Same reason plenty of rich people take investment for their own companies?
jamesblonde 9y ago
He only made 300m. Us other MySQL employees (about 250) shared crumbs for that purchase (VPs excepted). He screwed us, but he never had respect for us - "people are lazy and greedy" (https://www.pythian.com/blog/mysql-ceo-marten-mickos-interviewed/ https://www.pythian.com/blog/mysql-ceo-marten-mickos-intervi...) . Then he promised he would fix the mistake he made with Maria by being more generous. Ha.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Funny use of the word 'only'.
- johansch 9y ago
  Sad to hear that. Being an employee mostly sucks in Sweden. (If you put some (throwaway?) contact email in your profile I'd be interested to trade stories/old gossip via phone over the weekend; it seems like we worked in similar markets over similar times.)
- paraxisi 9y ago
  Here's the actual interview less the blogspam http://archive.fortune.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/mysql_greatteams_fortune/index.htm http://archive.fortune.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/mysq...
KGIII 9y ago
If you make a fortune and then turn around and invest that fortune into a new project, you no longer have your fortune. Meaning, he's probably limited his investments into the new company.

osrec 9y ago

Really very happy about this. I would love for MariaDB to outpace MySQL in terms of features, as I'm never quite sure which direction Oracle will take with MySQL (especially in terms of licensing)!

stephenr 9y ago
It’s ironic in a tragic way that people fear monger about Oracle changing the MySQL license (which has not changed from before Monty sold it to Sun) and advocate for a fork operated by a company that shits on the very concept of open source. If the MariaDB MaxScale licensing bullshittery didn’t make you think twice about relying on MariaDB, why do you worry about Oracle?

ppeetteerr 9y ago

Any time I hear that a Chinese company is investing in a product I use, it's as if the Chinese government is now part owner of it as well. This may be general paranoia, but given the latest crackdown on VPNs and privacy, I don't know that I want a foreign government with a significant stake in Alibaba have access to direct the future of MariaDB. Is anyone else feeling this?

gnbfrdjng 9y ago
What would the concrete concern be in this case? Any backdoor would destroy the company brand and be excised immediately in a fork. I suspect they’ll treat it like a piece of critical infrastructure; their political concerns would be at the gfw level, and I just don’t see the likelihood of weaponized attacks. Databases are usually locked down for egress and any outgoing attempts would be rapidly detected.
- finnh 9y ago
  > excised immediately Only if the backdoor is obvious. I doubt they would introduce a backdoor that reads `if ($PWD = "supersecretbackdoorpwd") loginAs("root");` But a subtle buffer overrun resulting in a 0day that's only obvious to the writers - that's much more likely. Check out the Underhanded C contest for examples of ways exploits can hide in plain sight. EDIT: I'm not saying that's what going to happen with Alibaba & MariaDb. I'm just saying that "open source" != "free of exploits and backdoors". One of the biggest untruths about open source is that, with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
  - gnbfrdjng 9y ago
    The backdoor would either be obvious (ie make outgoing connections) or it would have debatable value (maybe a killswitch?)
- mtgx 9y ago
  Lenovo seems to get caught with a backdoor every 6 months or so lately. Although I do think that has tainted its brand, I think it's still pretty far off from "destroying the brand".

jim_d 9y ago

happy to see MariaDB getting some investment, hoping it will continue growing.

snowman311 9y ago

Just looked through the Crunchbase profiles of a few Western SQL/NoSQL database companies, and I did not see any Chinese investors. This investment will certainly give MariaDB a significant competitive advantage in China. It will be interesting to see if other startups follow their strategy.

starrychloe 9y ago

Chinese government is leading a $27M infiltration, code injection, and backdoor scheme in MariaDB in order to steal and hack account information for millions of sites around the world.

whooshee 9y ago
Proofs? or you are just another troll.

cwyers 9y ago

I don't really understand the MariaDB love around here. If you look at actual production usage, MySQL gets the lion's share, looking at the customers each lists at their website. Oracle has been surprisingly benevolent as stewards of MySQL. That Business Source License that MariaDB put forward for new code at one point[1] looked like something I think would have cost an awful lot of goodwill if anyone else had used it. 1) https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb https://mariadb.com/bsl-faq-mariadb

jzawodn 9y ago
"surprisingly benevolent" eh? I'm guessing you've not been a paying customer with outstanding bug reports?
- cwyers 9y ago
  Given what I expected Oracle to do to MySQL, if being late on fixing bug reports under a support contract is the worst of their sins, then I stand by my statement.
noncoml 9y ago
Actually: - MariaDB MaxScale 2.0 will be under the BSL. - MariaDB Server will continue to be licensed under GPL in perpetuity, while its connectors will continue to be under the LGPL. To be honest I cannot blame Monty. Google and Facebook were built on MySQL and probably didn't give back as much as he thought would be a fair shar. I guess he doesn't want to see this happening again.
- stephenr 9y ago
  He’s free to do what he wants with his company. The problem is all these people going into headless chicken mode about how Oracle could discontinue the open source licence of the “original” MySQL, so they’re embracing MariaDB (the company) because it’s run by Monty so it must be open source friendly. You can use/support MariaDB all you want but let’s not pretend they’re great bastions of open source compared to Oracle in the MySQL realm.