MariaDB: What? Who? How? Why? Where?

MariaDB: What?
What is MariaDB? What does it do?

MariaDB: Who?
Who is working on MariaDB? Who is the target audience? Who can benefit from its use?

MariaDB: How?
How does MariaDB relate to MySQL? How is it developed? How can I contribute?

MariaDB: Why?
Why does MariaDB exist? Why is it important? Why should I care?

MariaDB: Where?
Where can I find more information? Where does the community congregate?

Yes, all these questions, and many more, will be answered in the session. If you’ve never heard of MariaDB, you’ll leave informed. If you’re already using or contributing to MariaDB, this session will likely fill some gaps in your knowledge.

MariaDB represents one of the most important MySQL derived projects. While being a drop-in replacement, it incorporates many new features, engines, and bugfixes. If you’re a busy DBA with important datasets served by MySQL in a production environment, it behooves you to learn more about MariaDB and assess its value to your infrastructure. MariaDB also encourages outside participation in development, QA, bug reporting, testing, and all facets of project development. So if you’re a hacker, a user, or just an interested bystander with unscratched itches in the MySQL codebase, or just a desire to improve MySQL, you’ll want to learn about how to get involved.

This is your 45 minute boot camp for understanding MariaDB: what it is, who is working on it, how its created, why it matters, and where you go for more information, software, and participation.