Replacement of MySQL ...

One of the most popular database servers. Made by the original developers of MySQL. Guaranteed to stay open source.

MariaDB​  is a fork (drop-in replacement) of My​SQL.  MySQL was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008.  Then, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010 with MySQL included.  

For several reasons, Michael Monty Widenius​ (the founder of MySQL) decided to fork MySQL and create a company for it called Monty Program AB. Thus, MariaDB (Maria is the name of the second daughter of Michael Monty Widenius) was born.

Michael "Monty" Widenius

Michael "Monty" Widenius​, Founder and CTO at MariaDB Foundation, FinlandComputer Software,
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In 1995 he began writing the first version of the MySQL database with David Axmark, released in 1996.  

Until MySQL AB's sale to Sun Microsystems in January 2008, he was the chief technical officer of MySQL AB and still one of the primary forces behind the ongoing development of MySQL. Selling MySQL to Sun, Widenius earned about €16.6 million in capital gains in 2008 (€16.8 million total income), making the top 10 of highest earners in Finland that year.
 

He lives in Helsinki with his second wife Anna and daughter Maria, and has a daughter My (after whom MySQL was named) and a son Max (giving the name for MaxDB) from his first marriage.

Monty with daugthers My and Maria.

In December 2012, the MariaDB foundation was created to avoid any company acquisition like what had happened in the past for MySQL.  SkySQL is a company comprising of ex-MySQL executives and investors who deliver services around MySQL/MariaDB. 

In April 2013, there was a merger between SkySQL and Monty Program AB. For a company that may have wanted to switch to MariaDB without support, it was problematic. However, since the merger, it has been possible.

MariaDB has new interesting features: better testing, performance improvements, and bug fixes that are unfortunately not available in MySQL. For example, some optimizations come from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.

LAMP

LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) software stack. 

With Google joining the exodus from MySQL to MariaDB, Oracle has another reason to regret its 2009 $7.4-billion purchase of Sun and MySQL. 

And the Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Python/Perl (LAMP) stack may soon be known as the Apache, MariaDB, PHP/Python/Perl stack.

MySQL

MySQL is mainly known for being one of the four components of the LAMP stack, that is, Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP — the most common technologies that make websites work.   MySQL development started in the 80s but the software became famous only with the birth of dynamic websites between 2000 and 2001.

Despite its substantial simplicity, MySQL's features have grown fast. It was criticized by PostgreSQL supporters because it did not support many key features of DBMSs, such as transactions and foreign keys. In spite of this being true at that time, MySQL had several unique features, which were extremely useful for a large amount of users. For example, it supported replication 10 years before PostgreSQL!  It was also reliable and fast.  

And as time went by, MySQL became a complete, feature-rich relational DBMS.

Why then did Monty Widenius, the creator of MySQL, leave the project to start a fork called MariaDB? That was because, in 2005, Oracle bought the InnoDB storage engine. In 2008, Sun Microsystems bought MySQL, which in turn was bought by Oracle in 2009. 

Since that acquisition, MySQL belongs to its biggest competitor: a big corporation whose business is ​mainly proprietary, high-cost software. To be fair, we must make it clear that Oracle is investing substantial resources on the MySQL technology, and did a great job in some areas, especially InnoDB. However, some uncertainty remains; is Oracle selecting the new features to avoid the users of their main product switching to MySQL? Will Oracle always invest in MySQL and keep it open source? Only Oracle managers know the answers to these questions.

What we know for sure is that MySQL is now less open than it used to be in the past. The public bug database is not used by Oracle employees and contains obsolete information. No information or test cases are released about security holes. The repositories are updated less often. And some community-oriented sites, such as a public wiki edited by the community, that contain vast information about MySQL do not exist anymore.

MariaDB

On the contrary, the strength of MariaDB is its continuous collaboration with the community.  Very important new features such as multisource replication and roles have been initially developed by community members. MariaDB's bug tracking and project management software allows us to know which bugs or new features are being processed, what the new versions will look like, and when they will be released.  Some developers actively communicate with users via the mailing lists and IRC channel. 

And while MySQL documentation has always been proprietary, MariaDB documentation has free licenses and can be improved by the community using a public wiki.

Most importantly, MariaDB Foundation exists.  It is similar to other foundations related to free software projects such as the Apache Foundation.  Monty Widenius himself is a member of the board of directors. The purpose of the foundation is to safeguard the MariaDB source code, and guarantee that it will always remain free. 

It also promotes MariaDB and its ecosystem, maintaining the MariaDB Knowledge Base. The website of the MariaDB Foundation is https://mariadb.org/​.

The MariaDB and MySQL teams follow diverging roads. The starting point is the same: the state of MySQL in 2009. 

However, while the MySQL road is going towards a less open zone, MariaDB is a perfectly open project. 

The results of this openness are positive from a technical point of view, too. MariaDB developers and MariaDB users are both interested in constantly improving the server, and they collaborate to achieve this goal.  

Switching from mySQL to MariaDB

• Google quietly dumps Oracle MySQL for MariaDB, September 13, 2013, 
• Red Hat will switch from Oracle MySQL to MariaDB, July 10, 2013,  
• Oracle who? Fedora & openSUSE will replace MySQL with MariaDB, January 31, 2013, 
• Wikipedia moving from MySQL to MariaDB​, December 17, 2012, ​