Under the covers of MySQL

Those of you who follow my blog know that I am not exactly an unbiased observer.  In fact Curt Monash states: 

Derek Rodner’s blog is worth checking out. His 2007 Year in Review post deserves a look - even though it’s about as unbiased and spin-free as Bill O’Reilly’s TV show, in that combines multiple shots each at Oracle and MySQL with some plugs for EnterpriseDB.

So, when MySQL themselves decides to show their dirty laundry, who am I to object.  In fact, I think it is great that they are starting to act a little more open.  For an open source company, they tend to be more closed source than Microsoft sometimes.

So, here is a nice presentation about the "issues" with MySQL.  In addition to having no "real" community, there are fundamental flaws in the database that go all the way back to its inception.

MySQL was architected to be a very fast read-only database.  And, it is.  But, you can't have it both ways.  Remember, a few years back Zack was even quoted saying something about no need for transactions.  I can't find the exact quote, but it was attuned to Bill Gates claiming that he saw no need for a pc with more than 64k of RAM. 

So, here MySQL sits, trying to become a real database and their architecture and years of development took them in a totally different direction.  It is very hard to undo the past.  And, now with the overhead of Sun, it is hard to see a scenario where MySQL can become a leading DBMS vendor.

I think that the Sun may indeed be setting for MySQL.  Every day, more and more people come out of the woodwork running real applications inside major organizations on Postgres!

Being a niche player is fine.  It helps you make a name for yourself.  But, be careful or else you will be stuck in that niche forever.