If you’re using a MySQL database on a Linux database, there’s a pretty good chance you’re really using MariaDB. MySQL is still around, but RedHat, Debian, etc. have replaced it with MariaDB.
MariaDB is the free fork of MySQL that was released following all the MySQL acquisition drama. The history is:
- In January 2008, MySQL AB was acquired by Sun Micrososystems
- Then in 2009, Sun was bought by Oracle
- At that point, the world freaked out and about a billion MySQL forks were announced, but the world settled on MariaDB.
Fun fact: the “My” in MySQL and the “Maria” in MariaDB are the names of MySQL founder Michael “Monty” Widenius’s daughters.
There’s the MariaDB Foundation, whose code you’re actually using, and then MariaDB Plc, the company. They want to sell you a support contract and all kinds of cool enterprisey upgrades.
The Foundation is a success. MariaDB Plc is a dumpster fire. I mean, just check out the stock price for $MRDB:
Youch. They IPO’d in 2022 and the stock was a turkey from the start, dropping 40 percent within days and then fading to a delisting last year.
What’s the problem? My thinking is that there just isn’t enough to sell. MariaDB out of the box covers most everyone’s needs, and those that are big and want enterprise hand-holding are probably already in some kind of relationship with Oracle already. There are some niceties to what MariaDB Enterprise offers, but some of that is outright fluff and the rest is only going to apply to some users in a thin market segment.
Indeed, the slice of the market that MariaDB Enterprise occupies is between “free” and “feature-hungry enough to want SQL Server or Oracle”, which is certainly a market segment, but it’s not that huge and you’re competing with EnterpriseDB (Postgres), Oracle’s MySQL, and others.
Even if you do get your foot in the door, you don’t get the network effect other licensed DBs do. If you’re an Oracle shop and you want to stand up some development nodes, disaster recovery nodes, etc. those are all licensing events. With MariaDB Enterprise, all your dev can run on MariaDB community edition.
MariaDB Plc’s income never got much above $50 million a year, which certainly isn’t hyperscale. It’s not even kiloscale. And they lost about that much each year, so…not a great business.
And now they’ve been acquired by “K1 Investment Management,” yet another dreary private equity company from an industry famous for squandering capital on losers.
“With K1’s support, we are poised to expand our capabilities and continue delivering the innovative database solutions our customers rely on,” said Rohit de Souza, CEO at MariaDB. “This partnership allows us to further product innovation, advancing our ability to support new workloads driven by AI and the cloud. We remain focused on making it easier for customers to transition from costly alternatives and meet the rapidly growing demands for AI and cloud-based solutions.”
In other words, we were about to go belly up and now we have “K1’s support” (cash) so we’ll be open for a little while longer, and here’s some buzzwords that don’t really have much to do with our 1970s SQL technology.
Ironically…
The K1 press release states “Notable clients include Deutsche Bank, Nokia, RedHat, Samsung and ServiceNow.”
On the same day, ServiceNow announced they’d finished off MariaDB and onto Postgres.
Oops.
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I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.
I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308
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The story of MariaDB’s struggles as a publicly traded company serves as a cautionary tale for other open-source projects seeking to monetize their software.