There has been work on this in the past. See for example: https://bugs.koha-community.org/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=7365 Afaik, database agnosticism remains a goal of the Koha project. But it competes with everything else for development resources. Bob *CALYX* On Sat, 14 Dec 2019 at 14:50, Coehoorn, Joel <jcoehoorn@york.edu> wrote:

There's some fun history here.

MariaDB was created when Oracle bought out Sun Microsystems in January 2010. Sun had owned the MySql DB project, but since the project was open source that's not the same as full ownership of the code itself. Oracle doesn't exactly have the best reputation as a good steward for open source projects, so when the acquisition was announced several prominent MySql contributors started their own project based on the then-current MySql code. The express purpose of the project is to ensure a MySql-compatible database remains available should Oracle start to behave poorly.

So, then, the whole point of the MariaDB project is that it should be compatible with MySql.

Additionally, the licensing used with MariaDB is seen as a little better (more permissive for end users, while also safer for the "pure" open source projects like Debian).

As for the Oracle situation, MariaDB has been partially successful. The existence of the project has effectively prevented Oracle from closing off MySql code in favor or their prior Oracle Database (the pricing model for which would shock you -- they have customers who pay over $100,000 for a single instance). However, it has not stopped Oracle from allowing the project to become stagnant. MySql (and MariaDB) have until recently lacked *many* modern database features: CTEs, recursive queries, lateral joins, windowing functions, transaction DDL, correct/ansi NULL handling by default... I could go on and on and on. Sql Server, Postgresql, and Oracle have all had all of those features for over a decade.

Really, **no one** should have started new projects with MySql (or MariaDB) from around 2012 -- when it was clear MySql had fallen far behind and wasn't progressing -- through April of 2018, when MySql 8.0 finally went GA. Today, MySql is (thankfully) finally advancing as a project again, but it still has some catch-up to do, and given a choice I'd much prefer to be using Postgresql in Koha.

Joel Coehoorn Director of Information Technology 402.363.5603 *jcoehoorn@york.edu <jcoehoorn@york.edu>*

*Please contact helpdesk@york.edu <helpdesk@york.edu> for technical assistance.*

The mission of York College is to transform lives through Christ-centered education and to equip students for lifelong service to God, family, and society

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 12:15 AM Charles Kelley <cmkelleymls@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi, all!

Is there a difference between MariaDB and MySQL in the working environment of Koha?

Thanks for your input.

-- -- Charles.

Charles Kelley, MLS PSC 704 Box 1029 APO AP 96338

Charles Kelley 1-5-2 Tsukimino #210 Yamato-shi, Kanagawa-ken, 〒242-0002 JAPAN

1-301-741-7122 [US cell] 011-81-80-4714-5490 [JPN cell]

mnogojazyk@aol.com [h] cmkelleymls@gmail.com [p]

linkedin.com/in/cmkelleymls <http://www.linkedin.com/in/cmkelleymls> Meeting Your Information Needs. Virtually. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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Interesting to have this conversation come up at this time, We've been fighting recently to maintain compatability with both MySQL and MariaDB as in recent times they have started to diverge. On a personal note, I don't feel agnosticism is the best route, I'd like to see us pick a DB as a community and then advocate using that database to its fullest potential. Being agnostic, both in vendor and version, means were stuck with a pretty low bar for our lowest common denominator in code (or we introduce vendor and version specific code paths for each dB we support and give ourselves an additional maintainence challenge). We can't currently implement some types of constraints and as such risk data integrity in places, we can rely on JSON or XML features for performance boost.. just a couple of examples of where we are missing out. As for the debate between the three big contenders, MySQL, MariaDB and Postgres.. I feel MariaDB has already won to some extent in the Koha codebase, and is the obvious choice. I have worked with Postgres and love it, but I'm not sure how close we are to being able to support it in Koha at this time.. my experience is that it's considerably stricter and we use our SQL schema in some 'interesting' ways. All good food for thought and an interesting conversation to have rolling. Martin On Sun, 15 Dec 2019, 10:09 pm Carlos Lopez, <clopez@dml.vic.edu.au> wrote:

Related question:

Is anyone working on porting the Koha database structure (and codebase) to Postgresql? (because of course everyone has unlimited time and energy)

With kind regards from the Dalton McCaughey Library Team

Carlos Lopez

Dalton McCaughey Library | 29 College Crescent, Parkville, VICTORIA 3052 Ph: 03 9340 8888 ext.1 | library@dml.vic.edu.au | library.dmlibrary.org.au

-----Original Message----- From: Koha <koha-bounces@lists.katipo.co.nz> On Behalf Of Coehoorn, Joel Sent: Saturday, 14 December 2019 2:49 PM To: Charles Kelley <cmkelleymls@gmail.com> Cc: Discussion Group Koha <koha@lists.katipo.co.nz> Subject: Re: [Koha] Difference Between MariaDB and MySQL

There's some fun history here.

MariaDB was created when Oracle bought out Sun Microsystems in January 2010. Sun had owned the MySql DB project, but since the project was open source that's not the same as full ownership of the code itself. Oracle doesn't exactly have the best reputation as a good steward for open source projects, so when the acquisition was announced several prominent MySql contributors started their own project based on the then-current MySql code. The express purpose of the project is to ensure a MySql-compatible database remains available should Oracle start to behave poorly.

So, then, the whole point of the MariaDB project is that it should be compatible with MySql.

Additionally, the licensing used with MariaDB is seen as a little better (more permissive for end users, while also safer for the "pure" open source projects like Debian).

As for the Oracle situation, MariaDB has been partially successful. The existence of the project has effectively prevented Oracle from closing off MySql code in favor or their prior Oracle Database (the pricing model for which would shock you -- they have customers who pay over $100,000 for a single instance). However, it has not stopped Oracle from allowing the project to become stagnant. MySql (and MariaDB) have until recently lacked *many* modern database features: CTEs, recursive queries, lateral joins, windowing functions, transaction DDL, correct/ansi NULL handling by default... I could go on and on and on. Sql Server, Postgresql, and Oracle have all had all of those features for over a decade.

Really, **no one** should have started new projects with MySql (or MariaDB) from around 2012 -- when it was clear MySql had fallen far behind and wasn't progressing -- through April of 2018, when MySql 8.0 finally went GA. Today, MySql is (thankfully) finally advancing as a project again, but it still has some catch-up to do, and given a choice I'd much prefer to be using Postgresql in Koha.

Joel Coehoorn Director of Information Technology 402.363.5603 *jcoehoorn@york.edu <jcoehoorn@york.edu>*

*Please contact helpdesk@york.edu <helpdesk@york.edu> for technical assistance.*

The mission of York College is to transform lives through Christ-centered education and to equip students for lifelong service to God, family, and society

On Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 12:15 AM Charles Kelley <cmkelleymls@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Hi, all!

Is there a difference between MariaDB and MySQL in the working environment of Koha?

Thanks for your input.

-- -- Charles.

Charles Kelley, MLS PSC 704 Box 1029 APO AP 96338

Charles Kelley 1-5-2 Tsukimino #210 Yamato-shi, Kanagawa-ken, 〒242-0002 JAPAN

1-301-741-7122 [US cell] 011-81-80-4714-5490 [JPN cell]

mnogojazyk@aol.com [h] cmkelleymls@gmail.com [p]

linkedin.com/in/cmkelleymls <http://www.linkedin.com/in/cmkelleymls> Meeting Your Information Needs. Virtually. _______________________________________________ Koha mailing list http://koha-community.org Koha@lists.katipo.co.nz https://lists.katipo.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/koha

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