New Innovation Release Model for MariaDB Community Server

Global database solutions provider MariaDB has introduced a new release methodology for its MariaDB Community Server, also known as MariaDB Server. The purpose is to bring new features and innovation to the millions of MariaDB users all around the world faster.

Under the new approach, new community server release series – such as MariaDB Community Server 10.6 or 10.7 – will be brought to market once every quarter rather than once a year. This would provide more opportunity for new features and contributions to be provided to the MariaDB user base.

“The cloud has created an expectation of continuous innovation and deployment,” said Max Mether, co-founder and vice president of server product management, MariaDB Corporation. “In addition, other successful open-source projects, such as Ubuntu and Fedora have adopted a similar frequent release model. By changing the release model, we’ll be able to meet today’s expectations for faster and more predictable innovation cycles for the MariaDB community.”

Broader Adoption of MariaDB Server

Photo Kaj Arnö, CEO at MariaDB Foundation
“This will increase engagement with the community as there will now be four yearly opportunities for contributors to see their code merged,” said Kaj Arnö, CEO at MariaDB Foundation.

The new MariaDB Community Server release series will be offered on a quarterly basis starting with the next major upgrade, and each release series will be maintained for one year. Some release series will be chosen for extended maintenance periods in agreement with Linux distributions, which will occur at least every other year.

MariaDB Enterprise, which is designed to fulfill the most stringent dependability, stability, security, and scalability requirements, will be published on a regular basis by MariaDB Corporation, with each release series’ maintenance lasting at least five years.

“MariaDB has one of the largest and most engaged communities in open source,” said Kaj Arnö, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at MariaDB Foundation. “With an emphasis on more frequent new features, we believe this will drive even broader adoption of MariaDB Server around the globe. It also will increase engagement with the community as there will now be four yearly opportunities for contributors to see their code merged.”

“For over eight years, MariaDB has been a popular database choice in the Fedora Linux distribution,” said Michal Schorm, Fedora Project contributor and MariaDB package maintainer for Fedora Linux. “I look forward to continuing my collaboration with the team behind MariaDB to bring future releases under their new release model to the vast user base that rely on Fedora Linux every day.”