Brian wrote recently Where did all of the MySQL Developers Go?, while over in Drizzle land they have been accepted for the Google Summer of code along with many other open source projects. MySQL from my observation a noticeable absentee.
Historically, the lack of opportunity to enable community contributions and see them implemented in say under 5 years, has really hurt MySQL in recent times. There is plenty of history here so that’s not worth repeating. The current landscape of patches, forks and custom MySQL binaries for storage engine provider has provided a boom of innovation that sadly is now lost from the core MySQL product.
In Drizzle, community contribution is actively sought and a good portion of committed code is not from the core Drizzle developers (wherever they work). As a Drizzle GSoC project contributor last year Padraig for example this year is helping to mentor. The Drizzle project contribution philisophy, GSoC and other activities such as the Drizzle Developer Day all enable the next generation of developers to be part of ongoing project developement.
Oracle, what are you going to do to foster an active community and new long term developers for MySQL?
I don’t think it matters what they do. It is unlikely that many will volunteer (work for free) to work on MySQL. There are too many barriers. A lot of the development is still done behind closed doors. The code is too hard to understand and modify. MariaDB is open, but the code is just as hard to modify.
If people want to volunteer on something in the MySQL family, they will choose Drizzle. But many others will work on a NoSQL project where there is more opportunity to have an impact.
We actually discussed collaborating with the MariaDB folks on the GSoC. However, Google did not select MariaDB/MySQL as a project this year. In the meanwhile we’re working on incorporating several patches that were contributed from the MariaDB developers and others. Check the bug database for the “Contribution” tag
@Mark I completely agree with you. I think Oracle just be definition as a commercial entity will be a barrier for re-establishing any vibrant community.
@Lenz I know contributions are flowing back to MySQL, even from the storage engine providers, but MySQL’s history of a lack of action, and now Sun/Oracle ownership uncertainty just in management processes and getting up to speed by both parties, are all negative effects on increasing the MySQL ™ product developer community.
On the other hand I think that things are probably much better for internal developers (Sun/Oracle employees). I think they will be more productive then they were in the past, releases will have fewer delays and release quality will be better.