Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Drizzle is deployed in some production environments, but not very widely from what
we've seen. The Drizzle project's philosophy of casting off the chains of backward-
compatibility means that it's probably a better candidate for new applications than for
migrating an existing application.
Other MySQL Variants
There are, or have been, many other variants of the MySQL server. Many large com-
panies, such as Google, Facebook, and eBay, maintain modified versions of the server
that suit their precise needs and deployment scenarios. Much of this source code has
been made available publicly; perhaps the best-known examples are the Facebook and
Google patches for MySQL.
In addition, there have been several forks or redistributions, such as OurDelta,
DorsalSource, and, for a brief time, a distribution from Henrik Ingo.
Finally, many people don't realize that when they install MySQL from their GNU/
Linux distribution's package repositories, they are actually getting a modified version
of the server—in some cases, quite heavily modified. Red Hat and Debian (and there-
fore Fedora and Ubuntu) ship a nonstandard version of MySQL, as does Gentoo and
practically every other GNU/Linux distribution. In contrast to the other variants we've
mentioned, these distributions don't advertise how much they've changed the server's
source code, because they keep the MySQL name.
We've had a lot of problems in the past with such modified versions of MySQL. This
is one reason that we tend to advocate using Oracle's version of MySQL unless there
is a compelling reason to do otherwise.
Summary
The forks and variants of MySQL have rarely resulted in significant amounts of code
being adopted back into the main MySQL source code tree, but they have nevertheless
influenced the direction and pace of MySQL development greatly. In some cases they
provide a superior alternative.
Should you use a fork instead of Oracle's official MySQL? We don't think this is usually
necessary. The choice is usually based on perceptions (which are never completely
accurate) or business reasons, such as having an enterprise-wide relationship with
Oracle. There are two general categories of people who tend to turn away from the
official version of the server:
