Devs begin to assess options for MySQL’s future beyond Oracle

Steven

Devs begin to assess options for MySQL’s future beyond Oracle

Summary

Developers and companies that depend on MySQL have begun meeting to discuss the database’s future as concerns grow over Oracle’s stewardship. Job cuts to Oracle’s MySQL core team and a sharp decline in commits have prompted community stakeholders — including engineers from Percona and PlanetScale — to consider alternatives such as community governance or a fork of the project.

Key Points

  1. Community members met in San Francisco to assess Oracle’s handling of MySQL and map potential next steps.
  2. Recent Oracle job cuts and falling commit activity have triggered fears MySQL is under-prioritised.
  3. Options under consideration include leaving governance with Oracle, creating a tracking fork (like Percona Server for MySQL) or a hard fork (like MariaDB).
  4. Major cloud vendors and smaller providers have been approached; some maintain interest but no commitments have been announced.
  5. Further meetings are planned, including a European developer session around FOSDEM, to gather input and decide how to proceed.

Content Summary

The article reports that contributors and companies built around MySQL are worried about Oracle’s recent decisions: headcount reductions and diminished upstream activity. Percona and PlanetScale engineers were among those at the meeting. PlanetScale already maintains its own MySQL fork and vows to back the technology. The group discussed governance choices — from tracking forks that remain closely compatible to hard forks that pursue a separate path — and emphasised the community’s desire for transparency, continued feature development (for example, vector search), and stronger vendor collaboration.

Attendees spoke with cloud vendors and other stakeholders; however, no formal commitments were disclosed. The community plans further consultations, including a session at FOSDEM, before making any public moves. The Register asked Oracle for comment; none was included in the piece.

Context and Relevance

Why this matters: MySQL underpins a huge portion of the web and many businesses’ infrastructure. Any shift in governance or a prominent fork would affect compatibility, vendor offerings, and cloud database strategies. This sits alongside broader open-source governance trends where communities have previously forked vendor-led projects to protect continuity and feature access (the article cites Valkey as a recent example).

For DBAs, platform engineers and organisations reliant on MySQL, the outcome could mean changes to upgrade paths, enterprise features and cloud integrations. The situation also signals how vendor priorities (moving features into cloud/enterprise tiers) can push communities towards collective action.

Why should I read this?

Quick version: if your apps, services or business depend on MySQL, this is not just chatter — it’s about who will actually maintain the engine you rely on. The community’s moves could change compatibility and feature availability, so it’s worth a skim now rather than a scramble later.

Source

Source: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2026/01/23/mysql_post_oracle/