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Hah, so MariaDB was created because the creator of MySQL got pissed about the acquisition by Sun/Oracle, and now MariaDB might be acquired as well? Making bank

Hah, so MariaDB was created because the creator of MySQL got pissed about the acquisition by Sun/Oracle, and now MariaDB might be acquired as well? Making bank while forking their project over and over isn't a bad way to make a living it seems.

dylan604 3y ago
good thing the concept of non-compete windows are not part of FOSS
solardev 3y ago
Is it more that they're against acquisitions in general, or specifically an acquisition by Oracle, widely considered one of the eviler tech companies?
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Just short of a hundred million dollars against it, in that case. :-) Edit: my bad - Sun acquired it, not Oracle. Made me all sad for Suns demise again.
  - thayne 3y ago
    IIRC MariaDB was forked when Oracle acquired Sun not when Sun acquired MySQL.
- perbu 3y ago
  As a long term MySQL user I think getting acquired by Oracle pretty good for the product. The old, hard issues that MySQL never had the engineering to tackle themselves finally got resolved.
  - rubiquity 3y ago
    Facebook and Alibaba deserve a lot of the credit for MySQL’s recent renaissance.
    - b112 3y ago
      And a lot of mysql 5.6 was percona.
  - asddubs 3y ago
    what are those?
    - 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
      Atomic DDL (possible because of a complete rewrite of the underlying storage format), proper Unicode by default (did you know that utf8 in MySQL is not really utf8? hit up your favorite search engine for utf8mb3 vs utf8mb4), strict typing by default, plus a horde of new features many MySQL users have been waiting like CTEs and window functions. I too am a fan of what Oracle did for MySQL. There haven't been any major releases since 2018, though. Since their development process is closed, I am wondering when/if are we going to see MySQL 9 (if it's anything like 8, it's going to be huge). https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html MariaDB initially went through a process of adding absolutely everything they could into the database (e.g: many additional storage engines like Cassandra and TokuDB), most of which since have been removed. It felt less like it was driven by a strong engineering process, and more like let's throw everything and see what sticks (not much did).
      - johannes1234321 3y ago
        > There haven't been any major releases since 2018, though. Since their development process is closed, I am wondering when/if are we going to see MySQL 9 (if it's anything like 8, it's going to be huge). MySQL since 8.0 is on a "rolling release" model, where features were shipped as part of 8.0 once they were finished instead of waiting for a 9.0 release. Thus 8.0 got quite a few improvements since 8.0.0. Recently they announced a new model where they split LTS style versions and increase version number, again, but features still appear as they are done and not for a big release: https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/post/introducing-mysql-innovation-and-longterm-support-lts-versions https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/post/introducing-mysql-innova...
      - evanelias 3y ago
        Just to add to the explanation in the sibling comment, MySQL 8.1 was released in July.
      - 3y ago
- MenhirMike 3y ago
  > tech companies Oracle is not a tech company but a law firm that happens to have an engineering department.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    That's IBM. Oracle is a horrible person which happens to have a law firm.
    - stock_toaster 3y ago
      Oracle is a lawnmower with a law firm.
    - b112 3y ago
      And a boat.
      - happycube 3y ago
        And a Pacific island.
      - red-iron-pine 3y ago
        Multiple boats, actually
jorams 3y ago
The big difference here is that Runa Capital is a venture capital firm, and they already invested in MariaDB 8 years ago. To be honest I don't really understand how this acquisition makes sense in that context.
- runako 3y ago
  It's trading at a market cap of around $31 million, which is below even its revenue. Could make sense to buy it, improve operating metrics, and then flip it. (Or buy it, make it profitable, and earn a return that way.)
  - foota 3y ago
    I'm surprised the employees aren't making a buy out offer at this point. I'd love to own a reasonable fraction of the company I work for at that sort of price and would happily throw in some of my savings.
    - nickstinemates 3y ago
      I think that if you're working for a company facing this sort of situation you wouldn't be as bullish. On top of that you'd have ownership through stock options which you didn't need to fork over savings for.
    - swyx 3y ago
      well how many employees are left? just cause the company has revenues doesnt mean they have the wealth to buy their employer. ofc i'd absolutely love for this to happen. but also fair warning to any mariadb employees seriously considering this, figure out your renewal strategy first
    - runako 3y ago
      That makes sense, except the numbers may not match what people have/are willing to risk on their employer. $31m divided 500 ways (guessing @ staff size) is $62k each. That's a big bet in one place, and one that is likely to be out of reach for some staff.
arp242 3y ago
Gives a new meaning to "fork over the cash" :-)
evanelias 3y ago
MariaDB already had its exit last December. It went public via a SPAC deal. Like most SPACs, the stock hasn't performed well. Its market cap is now around $30 million, which is substantially less than it raised in venture funding. If they want to remain a public company, they'll need to do a reverse-split soon to get the stock price above $1/share, otherwise they'll be de-listed.
altairprime 3y ago
Receiving an unsolicited offer compels them to publish this notice, and by their declaration they were not seeking that offer (“unsolicited”). Technically, I think anyone can make an offer on any company operating in their legal jurisdiction, and that would compel the company receiving the offer to publish an equivalent press release. I don’t blame them for having nothing to add at this time other than “here is the legally required declaration, please wait”. Even a flat refusal takes time to prepare, in order to meet all the necessary legal forms. (This is not legal advice, please consult a legal professional regarding the validity of these statements in your jurisdiction(s), etc.)
Waterluvian 3y ago
I would never fault anyone for cashing in and walking away when offered a life-changing sum. Life is too short.
- m463 3y ago
  contesting a will, divorce, police corruption, golden parachute, etc..
derrida 3y ago
I am so confused, for the lay person - can someone explain how does something with a copy-left license the GPL end up in this situation of being "acquired"? We can just fork it right? I have lately been wondering if culture has forgotten how to run any organisation apart from a for profit corporation or a KPI driven NGO. E.g. an association, a co-operative etc. These all require collaboration and entrepreneurship and innovation without it being a competition via KPI or everything justified by the dollar (as is often the case sometimes even in charities)
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  GPL is what allowed Monty to fork after selling the MySQL trademark and copyright to Oracle. So Monty lost the ability to dual license, yet gained much money. Arguably with GPL2 he could even fork with proprietary plugins created later. Or he may have negotiated a backroom deal with Oracle to keep some relicensing rights.
ss48 3y ago
There was an anonymous post complaining about mariadb.com, the company a few months back. Never saw the claims anywhere else though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3546

dylan604 3y ago

good thing the concept of non-compete windows are not part of FOSS

solardev 3y ago

Is it more that they're against acquisitions in general, or specifically an acquisition by Oracle, widely considered one of the eviler tech companies?

actionfromafar 3y ago
Just short of a hundred million dollars against it, in that case. :-) Edit: my bad - Sun acquired it, not Oracle. Made me all sad for Suns demise again.
- thayne 3y ago
  IIRC MariaDB was forked when Oracle acquired Sun not when Sun acquired MySQL.
perbu 3y ago
As a long term MySQL user I think getting acquired by Oracle pretty good for the product. The old, hard issues that MySQL never had the engineering to tackle themselves finally got resolved.
- rubiquity 3y ago
  Facebook and Alibaba deserve a lot of the credit for MySQL’s recent renaissance.
  - b112 3y ago
    And a lot of mysql 5.6 was percona.
- asddubs 3y ago
  what are those?
  - 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
    Atomic DDL (possible because of a complete rewrite of the underlying storage format), proper Unicode by default (did you know that utf8 in MySQL is not really utf8? hit up your favorite search engine for utf8mb3 vs utf8mb4), strict typing by default, plus a horde of new features many MySQL users have been waiting like CTEs and window functions. I too am a fan of what Oracle did for MySQL. There haven't been any major releases since 2018, though. Since their development process is closed, I am wondering when/if are we going to see MySQL 9 (if it's anything like 8, it's going to be huge). https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html MariaDB initially went through a process of adding absolutely everything they could into the database (e.g: many additional storage engines like Cassandra and TokuDB), most of which since have been removed. It felt less like it was driven by a strong engineering process, and more like let's throw everything and see what sticks (not much did).
    - johannes1234321 3y ago
      > There haven't been any major releases since 2018, though. Since their development process is closed, I am wondering when/if are we going to see MySQL 9 (if it's anything like 8, it's going to be huge). MySQL since 8.0 is on a "rolling release" model, where features were shipped as part of 8.0 once they were finished instead of waiting for a 9.0 release. Thus 8.0 got quite a few improvements since 8.0.0. Recently they announced a new model where they split LTS style versions and increase version number, again, but features still appear as they are done and not for a big release: https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/post/introducing-mysql-innovation-and-longterm-support-lts-versions https://blogs.oracle.com/mysql/post/introducing-mysql-innova...
    - evanelias 3y ago
      Just to add to the explanation in the sibling comment, MySQL 8.1 was released in July.
    - 3y ago
MenhirMike 3y ago
> tech companies Oracle is not a tech company but a law firm that happens to have an engineering department.
- masklinn 3y ago
  That's IBM. Oracle is a horrible person which happens to have a law firm.
  - stock_toaster 3y ago
    Oracle is a lawnmower with a law firm.
  - b112 3y ago
    And a boat.
    - happycube 3y ago
      And a Pacific island.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      Multiple boats, actually

jorams 3y ago

The big difference here is that Runa Capital is a venture capital firm, and they already invested in MariaDB 8 years ago. To be honest I don't really understand how this acquisition makes sense in that context.

runako 3y ago
It's trading at a market cap of around $31 million, which is below even its revenue. Could make sense to buy it, improve operating metrics, and then flip it. (Or buy it, make it profitable, and earn a return that way.)
- foota 3y ago
  I'm surprised the employees aren't making a buy out offer at this point. I'd love to own a reasonable fraction of the company I work for at that sort of price and would happily throw in some of my savings.
  - nickstinemates 3y ago
    I think that if you're working for a company facing this sort of situation you wouldn't be as bullish. On top of that you'd have ownership through stock options which you didn't need to fork over savings for.
  - swyx 3y ago
    well how many employees are left? just cause the company has revenues doesnt mean they have the wealth to buy their employer. ofc i'd absolutely love for this to happen. but also fair warning to any mariadb employees seriously considering this, figure out your renewal strategy first
  - runako 3y ago
    That makes sense, except the numbers may not match what people have/are willing to risk on their employer. $31m divided 500 ways (guessing @ staff size) is $62k each. That's a big bet in one place, and one that is likely to be out of reach for some staff.

arp242 3y ago

Gives a new meaning to "fork over the cash" :-)

evanelias 3y ago

MariaDB already had its exit last December. It went public via a SPAC deal. Like most SPACs, the stock hasn't performed well. Its market cap is now around $30 million, which is substantially less than it raised in venture funding. If they want to remain a public company, they'll need to do a reverse-split soon to get the stock price above $1/share, otherwise they'll be de-listed.

altairprime 3y ago

Receiving an unsolicited offer compels them to publish this notice, and by their declaration they were not seeking that offer (“unsolicited”). Technically, I think anyone can make an offer on any company operating in their legal jurisdiction, and that would compel the company receiving the offer to publish an equivalent press release. I don’t blame them for having nothing to add at this time other than “here is the legally required declaration, please wait”. Even a flat refusal takes time to prepare, in order to meet all the necessary legal forms. (This is not legal advice, please consult a legal professional regarding the validity of these statements in your jurisdiction(s), etc.)

Waterluvian 3y ago

I would never fault anyone for cashing in and walking away when offered a life-changing sum. Life is too short.

m463 3y ago
contesting a will, divorce, police corruption, golden parachute, etc..

derrida 3y ago

I am so confused, for the lay person - can someone explain how does something with a copy-left license the GPL end up in this situation of being "acquired"? We can just fork it right? I have lately been wondering if culture has forgotten how to run any organisation apart from a for profit corporation or a KPI driven NGO. E.g. an association, a co-operative etc. These all require collaboration and entrepreneurship and innovation without it being a competition via KPI or everything justified by the dollar (as is often the case sometimes even in charities)

paulryanrogers 3y ago
GPL is what allowed Monty to fork after selling the MySQL trademark and copyright to Oracle. So Monty lost the ability to dual license, yet gained much money. Arguably with GPL2 he could even fork with proprietary plugins created later. Or he may have negotiated a backroom deal with Oracle to keep some relicensing rights.

ss48 3y ago

There was an anonymous post complaining about mariadb.com, the company a few months back. Never saw the claims anywhere else though. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3546 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3546