History and Evolution of MySQL and MariaDB
- MySQL was created by the Swedish company MySQL AB, founded by David Axmark, Allan Larsson, and Michael “Monty” Widenius.
- The name MySQL comes from Monty Widenius’s daughter My, giving the database its distinctive name.
- The first version of MySQL was released on 23 May 1995. It was initially developed for personal use and was based on mSQL, using the low-level ISAM storage format, which the creators found too slow and inflexible.
- MySQL is written in C and C++, and its SQL parser is implemented using yacc.
- In January 2008, Sun Microsystems acquired MySQL AB for $1 billion, marking a major milestone in its history.
- In January 2010, when Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems, Monty Widenius forked the open-source MySQL project to create MariaDB, driven by concerns over Oracle’s control of MySQL. MariaDB is based on the same code base as MySQL Server 5.5 and was designed to remain highly compatible with Oracle’s MySQL versions.
- On the same day Oracle announced the acquisition of Sun, Widenius launched MariaDB and was joined by many MySQL developers who moved with him to the new project.
- MariaDB is named after Monty Widenius’s younger daughter Maria, mirroring the naming origin of MySQL.
- A global movement to “Save MySQL” was initiated by Monty Widenius in opposition to Oracle’s acquisition. A petition signed by over 50,000 developers and users urged the European Commission to block the acquisition.
- MariaDB incorporates only released versions of MySQL into its main development branch and serves as a binary drop-in replacement for corresponding MySQL versions. For example:
- MySQL 5.1 → MariaDB 5.1 (also compatible with MariaDB 5.2 and 5.3)
- MySQL 5.5 → MariaDB 5.5 and, in practice, MariaDB 10.0
- MySQL 5.6 → MariaDB 10.0
- MySQL 5.7 → MariaDB 10.2
