[something happened to this post and I am reposting it]
It was suggested by Monty that the posts I've made about MariaDB are for publicity. This simply isn't true. I would have much preferred a different outcome in my interactions with MariaDB. I figured that they would end up giving me a hard time, and I'd be stubborn and we'd both hate each other for as long as I could keep from leaving. A quick separation actually seems much better in such context. Regardless, I would have preferred to speak amicably to the MariaDB Corporation about switching the license back, or at least moving to the new license at the time of the notification of the community, ie, changing the license so that bug fixes for 1.3.4 were not mingled with new 2.0 features.

It could have been easily possible to have a 1.3.5 release that fixes the major bugs in 1.3 and then release a new set of features as 2.0. This would have been at least reasonable, but by …

OPEN SOURCE IS ABOUT BEING OPEN NOT JUST ABOUT SOURCE CODE.
MariaDB makes changes to the storage engine API without even consulting the mailing list. In fact, some MariaDB replication features don't work with TokuDB because a new storage engine API call is required, and this call requires functionality that might not exist in all engines, that is, the engine must be able to convert a transaction id into a THD object. No API is provided by the SE to make this translation. MariaDB must communicate changes to the storage API to the public so that the public can ensure that tools made to work with MariaDB continue to work with MariaDB. It doesn't matter that TokuDB is made by a competitor. In a foreign language article, Kaj recently said MariaDB is more open than Oracle because it includes many storage engines. This is a crappy argument. MariaDB is trying to say they are better than Oracle because they profit more from including code they didn't …

Many of my recent engagements have been all around strategy to implement Real Time Big Data Analytics: Computing hardware cost of extending a single table collection with MariaDB and Parallel Query found in the Spider storage engine to offload columnar MPP storage like InfiniDB or Vertica.

As of today Parallel Query is only available from releases of MariaDB Spider supported by spiral arms. The more efficient way to use parallel query with Spider can be done on group by, and count queries that use a single spider table. In such case Spider Engine will execute query push down AKA map reduce.

Spider gets multiple levels of parallel execution for a single partitioned tables.

First level is per backend server:
The way to actually tell spider to scan different backends in concurrency is to set  spider_sts_bg_mode=1

Other level is per …

If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard of the Spider storage engine, but not used it yet.

While it has been available for some years now, I just simply haven’t used it before until now.

I suspect that has to do with ease of installation. Previously, one had to compile it with MySQL in order to use it, which excludes a lot of people. However, in MariaDB 10.0 (as of 10.0.4), it is very easy to add and use.

And with MariaDB 10.0.8 being declared RC, combined with Spider’s sheer usefulness, I only suspect its usage will become more and more widespread.

What is the Spider storage engine, and why will it be useful?

“The Spider storage engine is a storage engine with built-in sharding features. It supports partitioning and xa transactions, and allows tables of different MariaDB instances to be handled as if they were on the same instance. It refers to one possible implementation of ISO/IEC …

I'm pleased to announce the release of Spider storage engine version 3.1(beta) and Vertical Partitioning storage engine version 1.0(beta).
Spider is a Storage Engine for database sharding.
http://spiderformysql.com/
Vertical Partitioning is a Storage Engine for vertical partitioning for a table.
http://launchpad.net/vpformysql

Please use the following for downloading binary file.
http://spiderformysql.com/download_spider.html

The main changes in this version are following.
Spider
- Add server parameter "spider_general_log" and "spider_log_result_errors".
- Add table parameter "force_bulk_update" and "force_bulk_delete".
- Add "spider_bka_mode=2" and "bka_mode=2". …

Spider storage engine is bundled in MariaDB 10.0.4.
https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/10.0.4/

After this release, you can use Spider immediately by installing MariaDB.
For using Spider after installing MariaDB, please execute "install_spider.sql"
which under share directory.

MariaDB 10.0.4 is still alpha version, so please don't use on production systems.
Currently, MariaDB bundled Spider has the following difference than MySQL bundled Spider.

New features
  batched key access
    This is a feature for join performance improvement.
    You can use BKA by setting join_cache_level to 5 and more.
  assisted discovery
    This is a feature for taking table structure from data node.
…

One thing you might have missed from the MariaDB 10.0.4 Alpha release announcement is that SPIDER is finally in-tree, inside MariaDB. I’ve been watching the SPIDER engine for quite some years and fondly remember the time when Kentoku Shiba dressed up as spiderman at a MySQL Conference.

There are many factors that plays to an engines success. Distribution is one of them. Having a company backing it with services is another, so it is with great pleasure that I also show you Spiral Arms Ltd by Kentoku and Goto.

Overall, a good time to celebrate and I’m very happy for Kentoku and Goto. Now to promote its use. …

I'm pleased to announce the release of Spider storage engine version 3.0(beta) and Vertical Partitioning storage engine version 0.18(beta).
Thank you for waiting such a long time! This release includes my 1 year development.
Spider is a Storage Engine for database sharding.
http://spiderformysql.com/
Vertical Partitioning is a Storage Engine for vertical partitioning for a table.
http://launchpad.net/vpformysql

Please use the following for downloading binary file.
http://spiderformysql.com/download_spider.html

The main changes in this version are following.
Spider
- Support link to oracle tables.
  Connection from Spider to Oracle is now available by using …

I'm pleased to announce the release of Spider storage engine version 2.28(beta) and Vertical Partitioning storage engine version 0.17(beta).
Spider is a Storage Engine for database sharding.
http://spiderformysql.com/
Vertical Partitioning is a Storage Engine for vertical partitioning for a table.
http://launchpad.net/vpformysql

Please use the following for downloading binary file.
http://spiderformysql.com/download_spider.html

The main changes in this version are following.
Spider
- Support parallel searching. ("spider_bgs_mode > 0")
The table using the Spider bundled MySQL and table partitioning performs parallel search of each partition. However, parallel search is not …

I'm pleased to announce the release of Spider storage engine version 2.27(beta) and Vertical Partitioning storage engine version 0.16(beta).
Spider is a Storage Engine for database sharding.
http://spiderformysql.com/
Vertical Partitioning is a Storage Engine for vertical partitioning for a table.
http://launchpad.net/vpformysql

Please use the following for downloading binary file.
http://spiderformysql.com/download_spider.html

The main changes in this version are following.
Q4M is bundled for Linux 64bit.
  Bundled Q4M supports replication, but please use it carefully.

Spider
- Support R-Tree index.
- Support direct updating for SQL …