I wouldn't really put too much weight into the marketing speak, MariaDB feels like the same MySQL offering that always existed, at least to me (and I do run it

I wouldn't really put too much weight into the marketing speak, MariaDB feels like the same MySQL offering that always existed, at least to me (and I do run it in production, albeit only on a small scale.) And MariaDB has done plenty of work that is available in the open source product: performance improvements, new storage engines and so on. The only thing that's surprising is that MySQL continued to do the same. I don't think what MariaDB is doing today is what everyone was really worried about Oracle doing. Rather, Oracle simply never did what everyone thought they would. Personally, I think MariaDB keeps them honest, and if MariaDB ceased to exist as a serious alternative there is a good chance the lawnmower would fire back up. Though who knows. Maybe Oracle is different. However, I would prefer not to waste the openness of my mind. I reckon if they thought they could pull the rug they would do so.