MariaDB receives offer to go private more than year after disastrous IPO

MariaDB has confirmed a possible offer of $37.3 million from private equity company K1 Investment Management to take the recently troubled database company private. In an announcement last night, MariaDB plc, which is separate from the MariaDB Foundation running the open source project, said it had received an "unsolicited non …

[Mike007]

Have to admit my main awareness of mariadb was that it is a compatible mysql fork that I use interchangeably depending on if my internal PRNG spits out "mysql" or "mariadb" at the start of a project.

I was aware that mysql has a paid version with some form of scalable clustering, and one of the things mariadb adds compared to the open source version of mysql is (not very scalable) clustering. I was not aware mariadb had a paid version with scalable clustering until I just looked it up...

...would the commercial mariadb going broke mean the open source project would no longer be incentivised to "ignore" proper clustering support? If so, I hope the new owners saddle them with billions in unrepayable debt :)

[Michael Hoffmann]

Whenever I hear "private equity" I look like I'm having a seizure, because I can't decide whether I should facepalm, run screaming or have paroxysms of rage.

Will this mob follow the usual pattern of trying to leech off the IP? Start lawsuits? Try and force users of the free version into a subscription model? Close-source MariaDB, in the usual incomprehension of OSS, leading to another fork? JosephDB, I presume, this time around?

[ldo]

Re: trying to leech off the IP?

That’s Oracle’s job.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: trying to leech off the IP?

While I despise Oracle's sales practices, I think that, as a business, they've done a reasonable job with MySQL: there's still a free version but maintenance and documentation have considerably improved under Oracle's stewardship. Of course, they want you to pay for stuff and the licensing has been tightened up, but that was clear from the start and for any businesses who really need MySQL that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

You'll see what real sharks look like if this deal goes through. As for the DB itself, well, without a company like MariaDB plc doing most of the development, I wouldn't expect much. Fortunately, there are now quite a few alternatives out there. And, if needed, companies that can help you migrate.

Time to bring back the RIP icon?

[werdsmith]

I’ve long forsaken MySQL and its issue due to the involvement of Oracle and subsequent discovery of the excellence of PostgreSQL.

I just hope that University of California continue to look after PG as well as they have so far.

[ldo]

Re: University of California continue to look after PG

If they don’t, somebody else will.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is always the MariaDB Foundation. And it's CEO believes in "business as usual" - https://mariadb.org/mariadb-plc-looking-forward-to-business-as-usual/