So, the Malta MySQL User Group has had its first ever meet-up today, and it was a success! When organizing it, I had no clue how many people would show up, people have said “yes” and then changed to “no”, and vice versa.

Anyway, so the morning came, and I sent out a few confirmation emails, and it suddenly dropped down to just three of us, which was a shame. Anyway, around 5pm, I noticed that there was four more that had just said they wanted to attend. Unfortunately, one of those dropped out, but it was still a great turnout.

This is a great opportunity for us to promote MySQL use in Malta, as well as share experience and knowledge. Also just to network a bit.

So, this time, for meeting #1, we met up outside a local bank, and walked to Il-Mithna, which is a local restaurant. In this picture, there is the first core group of local user group members, all happily gathered and just about to start our discussions. …

An event truly fitting an “open world” — I will be speaking at Oracle Open World.

How does a wild-mannered MySQL DBA like me get to speak at an Oracle conference? Well, after I received the MySQL Community Award two years in a row, Dan Norris contacted me, and encouraged me to submit a proposal with him on how to contribute to the community.

Oracle has a formal program for recognizing community members at two levels: the Oracle ACE Director, and the Oracle ACE. An Oracle ACE Director is expected to make a 12-month commitment to working with the community, while an Oracle ACE is bestowed upon folks to recognize their volunteer efforts in the past. More information about the program can be found on …

Back in May 2006, I have started my blog using the Blogger platform and one month later moved it to my own website using Wordpress. Couple month later, I joined Pythian and, since then, the vast majority of my blogging activities has been on the Pythian Group Blog.

The Pythian blog has grown significantly since then and many more excellent authors started blogging there. While the Pythian blog was mostly focused on Oracle database just a couple years ago, it’s has got very broad coverage now and is including MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle databases as well as Oracle Application Server, Oracle eBusiness Suite and …

The MySQL Community version is different in theory from the Enterprise version in relation to the following points:

0) It’s free
1) It has community patches
2) It is released less often
3) It is tested less strictly

In reality, the first two differences are not applicable — the binaries and source code for Enterprise can be freely and legally downloaded at http://mirror.provenscaling.com/mysql/enterprise/. The process for adding community patches to the MySQL source code has not been changed sufficiently to be able to actually add community patches and encourage more community development.

I understand that MySQL (and now Sun) needs to make money. I also understand that development takes a lot of effort, and seeing an ROI is important. The Community/Enterprise split was designed to have tradeoffs on both sides. …

Welcome to the 107th edition of the Log Buffer. My name is Keith Murphy and I am a MySQL database administrator for the Pythian Group. In addition, I am the editor of MySQL Magazine. This is my second go for the Log Buffer, so I must be doing something right!

This week for the open source world brings OSCON in Portland Oregon. There are plenty of MySQL people present and there have been more posting this week from these realms than normal. Also, Lewis Cunningham, among others, posted news that EnterpriseDB released the results of their open source survey at OSCON. The 451 CAOS Theory …

Brian Aker gives the “zinger” lightning talk about the newly announced “Drizzle”. This short (under 8 minutes) video captures Aker’s highlights of why he started the Drizzle project and how Drizzle is different from MySQL — both in what has been removed from MySQL and what features Drizzle can accomodate.

Play the video directly in your browser at http://technocation.org/node/576/play or download the 116 Mb file at http://technocation.org/node/576/download.

The last keynote of Tuesday evening at OSCon 2008 was entitled “Temporarily Quaquaversal Virtual Nanomachine Programming in Multiple Topologically Connected Quantum-Relativistic Parallel Timespaces…..Made Easy!”

Damian Conway is a speaker that should not be missed. He spends his time hacking perl to do fascinating and obscure feats of technology such as time travel. This video is just over an hour of rolling laughter that will entertain you into realizing what a genius Damian Conway is.

Now, most of my exposure is within the MySQL Community, so if folks could pass the links to the video along to other communities, that would be great.

(This video is at 1.0 Mb/sec. Watch the video online at http://technocation.org/node/571/play or download it at …

Yesterday I had a good conversation with Monty Widenius (a MySQL founder) about MySQL 5.1. Specifically, about the fact that MySQL 5.1 is not a GA (generally available) release.

My impression, which was wrong, was that it was difficult getting critical mass to download 5.1 and use it simply because it was not a GA release yet. I thought the paradox of needing to have a certain amount of usage before release was the barrier.

That’s not the case at all.
(more…)

That’s right. MySQL now has a user group in Paradise.

I am always looking into connecting with other MySQL professionals, to share the laughs and tears, and to enjoy what we love working with every day, MySQL. I have always wanted to bring us all together, and I thought that this would have a good chance of doing so. Since I live in Malta, this made for the perfect location for it. If you live in Malta, or perhaps in Sicily or Tunisia, and want to take a trip, please do join us at our first meeting.

We will be having our first meeting in Mellieha, and please RSVP to me personally via email, westerlund (at) pythian.com if you want to attend. The date is set for Thursday, …

In http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2008/07/01/should-we-proclaim-mysql-community-edition-dead/, Peter Zaitsev wonders if MySQL’s community edition is dead.

The title of Peter’s inquiry is somewhat misleading, as the database itself works fine. He clarifies a bit with, “there suppose to be 2 yearly binary releases (which are overdue) and 4 predictable yearly source releases, which we have not seen either.” I thought it was clear that “2 per year” doesn’t mean “one every six months”. It’s been eight months, sure. And I don’t actually believe that MySQL is going to have one source release per month until November, to make up for the lack of source releases. However, it’s certainly possible, if not probable.

The fact remains, however, that if you’re just looking for stable, recent, …