Software news, comment and analysis: MySQL creator decries latest build

Monday, December 8, 2008

MySQL creator decries latest build

The original author of the popular open source database package MySQL has decried the latest release, claiming it contains "fatal bugs."

According to The Register, the latest MySQL release – version 5.1, released by project owners Sun Microsystems last Thursday – prompted a blog post from Monty Widenius, the original creator of MySQL. Judging by the tone, he's not overly impressed with what's happening to his baby under Sun's guiding hand.

Titled "Oops we did it again – MySQL 5.1 released as [General Availability] with crashing bugs," the post claims that there are "20 known and tagged crashing and wrong result bugs in 5.1 – 35 more if we add the known crashing bugs from 5.0 that are likely to also be present in 5.1" alongside "more than 180 serious bugs in 5.1."

Monty is of the opinion that MySQL 5.1 should never have been released as general availability with the serious bugs he outlines – including old, unfixed bugs that can allow "anyone with rights to any database that is replicated to take down all slaves (either by accident or intentionally)" and several that allow the system to hang or crash unexpectedly.

While Monty believes that the MySQL team do a sterling job – describing them as "an excellent dedicated team of developers that are very good in what they are doing" – he's clearly not happy with what's going on at MySQL HQ. Blaming a decision by management to move MySQL 5.1 to beta and Release Candidate status "way too early" alongside Sun's database division head Mårten Mickos' encouraging his teams to concentrate on deadlines rather than quality, Monty is extremely scathing of the latest build.

Despite the problems, Monty encourages users to "install and test MySQL 5.1" but explains that "if it works, [you should] feel lucky" and that users "should [...] not put it into production without testing it fully."

Do you believe that the influence of the project's corporate overlords has stifled innovation and caused sub-standard products to ship, or is Monty just throwing his toys out of the pram because MySQL isn't his baby any more? Share your thoughts over in the forums.