I have not heard much about the new technical leaders at MySQL. What good changes can we expect from them? If what follows doesn't mean anything to you, assume it means that future releases of MySQL will be more stable with a shorter release cycle. I expect some of what Drizzle and/or PostgreSQL have been using:
- more use of modern C++
- official support for STL
- compilation with -Wall and removal of warnings
- use of good open-source libraries in place of NIH
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There are two core reasons for MySQL using many custom-written libraries:
ReplyDelete- at the time no standard ones existed; that one's now gone, we can agree.
- they're not PD/BSD licensed, thus MySQL can't use them in their dual licensing business.
The latter is the bottleneck. If MySQL were to ditch its dual licensing, then indeed it could use standard libraries just like Drizzle does.
I think such a change would be good for business in general, as well as improving code quality and freeing up development resources that are not being wasted on fixing bugs related to this then unnecessary custom code.
TCMalloc has a BSD license.
ReplyDeleteI would be really surprised if any important and common library - well, more than readline - uses GPL or a similar copyleft license. Even LGPL should be ok, right?
ReplyDelete"...Pardon the cliches but their bench is deep and the changes are an opportunity for others to step up..."
ReplyDeleteWell said, kudos for saying it.
"compilation with -Wall and removal of warnings"
ReplyDeleteDamn right! It puzzled me for years - are they taking pride in coding with warnings? What's that "I am smarter than my compiler" attitude?
Unforatunately LGPL is not alright for MySQL's dual licensing; well it is for the GPL release, but not for the proprietary EULA.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, it's a nasty thing and it actually has a real technical impact.