the indian wind along the telegraph lines

What’s Next?

Just a heads-up that today, October 12, is my last official working day at Monty Program. The change is bittersweet. Bitter because I will very much miss working with a very talented team. Sweet because I leave with a real sense of accomplishment. Monty hired me 2.5 years ago to drive awareness of MariaDB and to start building a viable community around it. I think these goals have been met to a large degree.

While I have been using vacation days recently, I did follow the announcements by Oracle regarding new closed, commercial extensions. Almost universally in these discussions MariaDB is put forth as a fully Free, drop-in replacement. The Reddit comments on Monty’s blog post about this issue are a good example. Also, Monty, Colin, and I have noticed that over the past 6 months or so the, “What is MariaDB?” conversations, especially at conference booths, had dropped precipitously. It’s exceedingly gratifying to see that MariaDB is a known solution, and that the work around it is seen as a true project, rather than a corporate product distributed freely. People know the project. A community has really started to coalesce. This being the case, the inevitable, “So … what’s next?” conversation with Monty ensued, and neither of us had an answer at our fingertips. So it’s time for me to move on and find a new challenge.

I would definitely not be leaving Monty Program unless Colin was staying. There is a lot of work in community gardening, and Colin is a rock star. The “What’s next?” conversation with Monty did not have to include stewardship of the MariaDB community. If you have questions about what’s happening in MariaDB world, Colin is the person to find henceforth.

It’s been a great time working for Monty Program, and I wish them and the MariaDB project every success. Starting up a project and a community around critical LAMP plumbing was an extremely fun ride!

Remembering 9/11

On the decade anniversary of one of the most horrific acts ever perpetrated by humans against other humans, I would like my fellow US citizens to reflect carefully upon these words, spoken by George Washington in his farewell address to the nation when voluntarily relinquishing the Presidency in the grand tradition of Cincinnatus:

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it – It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?

MariaDB at LinuxCon North America

I’m in Vancouver this week for the Linux Foundation’s annual North American conference.

Monty Program is once again a proud sponsor of LinuxCon, and as such we’ll have a table in the Technology Showcase (the equivalent of an Expo Hall). If you use, hack on, or are otherwise interested in MariaDB and/or MySQL, stop by and say hello! Also, be sure to attend Colin’s talk Friday at 1400!

It’s hard to believe we’re celebrating 20 years of the Linux kernel this year. Rock on!

A Folder Called Booty

I read on bOING-bOING yesterday that the “LulzSec” group has decided to call it quits. I was extremely amused by their naming a directory of stolen information “booty.” I called dibs on naming my first nerdcore hip-hop album A Folder Called Booty. Without further ado, here are the lyrics to the title track, released under a CC (NC-BY-SA) license. Enjoy!

IRCing with my peeps over SSL.
Mega-corporations gonna give ‘em hell.
Metasploit’s running and *ding* goes the bell,
Backdoor’s open ’cause we do it well.

You suck at security, don’t mean to sound snooty.
‘Cause penetration testing is a sacred duty.
We’re in, we’re gone, we got your looty.
It’s now all stored in a folder called booty.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with any group mentioned above. I do not condone illegal electronic acts, and will not ever commit them. These lyrics are written from a first-person perspective solely for artistic reasons. I am exceedingly grateful to live in a country with the inalienable right to free speech.

MariaDB 5.2.7 Released

The release announcement for MariaDB 5.2.7 just went out, and the new packages for RHEL5 will please many. A complete changelog is available as are less detailed release notes. Go get your download on, and be sure to use our Debian/Ubuntu repositories if you swirl that way.

Percona Live NYC

The next Percona Live event is this week, and in this time it’s in Manhattan! I’m grateful to Percona for giving me the opportunity to speak to attendees about current happenings in the MariaDB world. If you use SQL in the tri-state area, you should definitely consider getting yourself to Percona Live this Thursday.

See you there! And yes, yes … I’ll have black vodka.

MariaDB 5.2.6 Released

I just sent an e-mail to the MariaDB announce list (a low-traffic list to which you should subscribe if you’re only interested in important news) the release announcement for MariaDB 5.2.6. The announcement has much more information, as do the release notes and changelog.

Much of the project’s focus over the past weeks has been on the 5.3 and 5.5 series, as beta releases are something we’d like to do very soon. Add to this the continued discussions of potential 5.6 work initially started in Lisbon and the MySQL Users’ Conference last month, and it’s a recipe for neglect of existing stable release trees. Thankfully this is not the case, and the tradition of providing meaningful updates to stable releases continues. Great job!

Speaking of the MySQL-UC, the Monty Program booth in the Expo Hall sold t-shirts and held an auction to raise money for relief efforts in Japan. After some time waiting for Direct Relief International to process payment, I am pleased to report that thanks to the generosity of UC attendees we were able to raise US$664.66 to donate toward the ongoing efforts to bring some sort of normalcy to the country. Thank you to everyone that donated. どうもありがとうございます!

MariaDB Draft Trademark Policy Available

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned in a post that Monty Program was working on a trademark policy for MariaDB, and we hoped to have something available for community review in early 2011.

Well, that draft is ready now. The draft is available in the MariaDB knowledgebase, and we are soliciting public feedback through January 2. During the first week of January any approved edits will be made to make a final version, and that final policy mirrored on mariadb.org and montyprogram.com.

Hopefully the intent of allowing the unhindered development of cool stuff related to MariaDB while protecting the value of the primary brand itself is made clear. Let us know what you think in comments to the KB entry. If you suggest edits, please be sure your reasoning is expressed plainly. Of course, glaring oversights or errors should be brought to our attention regardless of the open commenting deadline. But please make a little time in the next 2 weeks to give us some input.

Thanks!

MariaDB 5.1.53 And 5.2.4 Released

This past Monday updates in both the 5.1 and 5.2 series of MariaDB were released. It’s a pretty big deal, as some issues have been solved that affect a large number of users. You should read the release notes for MariaDB 5.1.53 and for MariaDB 5.2.4 as well as the release announcement. The annoucement contains download links from worldwide mirrors.

Speaking of downloads, the 5.2 series has seen a remarkable increase in download totals. Several orders of magnitude, in fact. That’s usually a pretty good sign, so I’ll take it as such. It hopefully means more people are using MariaDB, and when talking about such matters with colleague Colin, he decided to get nosy with users. Satisfy Colin’s morbid curiosity, would you? Alright, mine too.

If you want to write an epic poem about your everlasting love for MariaDB, enduring hatred of it, or anything in between, you could sing it to Colin next week if you’re going to FOSS.in. Be sure to find Colin if you’re a MariaDB, MySQL, or general DB wonk.

Enjoy the new releases!

MariaDB And Trademark

I’d like to wish Henrik Ingo well now that he has publicly announced his resignation from Monty Program. Henrik, I especially wish you all the best with the new member of your family.

I know you put a lot of effort into your presentation to the Monty Program board regarding transfer of trademark ownership, and you know (and I do not mind saying externally) that I supported transfer to a non-profit designed for such purposes. Our informal, non-inclusive vote in Istanbul aside, I think the company as a whole should put a lot of thought into such matters. I would always hope the board would do the same.

And it is my understanding that this is what is happening. Not that the board made a final decision to maintain trademark ownership, but that they decided more research and discussion are needed. And despite my knee-jerk reaction to go the Debian trademark route, I came to Monty Program from Canonical. Wiser legal and business minds have decided to retain the Ubuntu trademark for Canonical. Just as Red Hat has retained the Fedora trademark. So despite my inclinations I have to ask why others have chosen differently.

Trademark has value, and not just to investors. Spoofy domains exist for a reason. And I have to admit to trusting Canonical and Red Hat to protect their marks better than, again, Debian (SPI owns but does not manage).

This leads to two questions. First, who actually manages trademark issues? If organizations own but do not manage, in practicality if Monty Program transferred ownership of the MariaDB trademark, Monty Program would still be in the position of managing it. I have doubts about community-only enforcement of trademark issues (Debian people, you there?). So either way, people have to have faith in Monty Program handling their trademark management sanely. It’s not about ownership, it’s about management. Which leads to question two.

What is sane trademark management? Trusting a company to protect a mark is useless if you don’t trust the company. How far is too far, and who do you trust? Canonical and Red Hat both have clearly stated guidelines vis-a-vis use of their respective marks. Monty Program does not. So regardless of who actually owns the MariaDB trademark, MariaDB needs a trademark policy so that those who wish to use the trademark understand how the mark is managed.

Personally I think Canonical and Red Hat enforce their trademarks sanely. There does not seem to be much objection to the Ubuntu and Fedora trademark guidelines from the community at large. If MySQL made mistakes with regard to their trademark policy and management of it, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that Monty Program will necessarily repeat those same mistakes.

Of course, everyone has a different definition of “sane.” Monty Program employees, the company board, and the community have to decide what is sane for themselves. So I find myself in agreement with the board. We probably need more time to actually draft a trademark policy, and to discuss the real benefits and possible issues of any potential transfer. I’m beginning to think “the other guy does it,” or (“didn’t do it”) isn’t enough.

Fortunately, the need for a trademark policy has been known for some time. We are looking at various other projects’ policies, and will probably borrow liberally from our Free/open source peers. It is my hope that a draft trademark policy will be made available for community comment early in 2011, after employees have a chance to help create that initial draft. Colin and I have been driving most of this, and unless I have misunderstood some of the salient points, we have been told to create a draft that assures:

1). The MariaDB (and other Monty Program managed marks) always entertain fair use gracefully.

2). The MariaDB trademark is made available to users, hackers, companies and products as long as the usage doesn’t conflict with other usage, and the trademark licensor keeps a level of quality and follows well established open source conduct.

3). The marks will always be available, via a “public promise” approach to ownership transfer (should ownership not have been transferred from Monty Program previously). Failure of the company, or failure of the company to deliver, ends exclusive mark ownership.

4). Everyone understands what “fair use,” “made available,” “beneficial ways,” and “public promise” mean above, and to where mark ownership will revert. We have yet to really define what will trigger the switch. That will be presented in draft form, also, I am sure.

MariaDB will only survive if people hack it and use it, and are able to say they hack it and use it. We want this. Our trademark policy will reflect it, and assure that Monty Program can’t run off with the mark, or let it wither and die. But training, professional certifications, hardware certifications? These require trademark management. It’s probably a primary factor in the lack of official Debian certs. And no offense meant to you Debian, trademark management isn’t something I want to do, either. Good management starts with a sane policy. And we will have a policy soon.

I don’t think MariaDB and/or Monty Program are that far off-course. And I’m too involved in making MariaDB succeed to quit now.