#1: Introduction and MariaDB vs MySQL
Published: 2020-08-31 00:33:06

##**Greetings**, my name is Sam Rioboli and I am a Sophomore majoring in Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. 

Throughout my life I have always been surrounded by technology which has made me appreciate how much it truly affects my life. If you sit down and think about where we would be as a society without technology today it is truly astounding how different our lives would be. Not only does technology change our lives for the better, but gives us the hope that tomorrow will be even brighter than the last. This way of thinking has made me love technology and sent me on a question to learn how it works and how to harness it. 

I have always been a big idea guy. I love coming across problems and discovering how to solve them. My goal is to use technology to help people. Whether it be in healthcare or elsewhere I hope to create something great that can make peoples lives better. I hope to use my knowledge and experience gained from this course and others to my benefit and the benefit of others. 

One of my inspirations is the LifeStraw. The creators of the LifeStraw saw a problem and they went out and fixed it. Harnessing technology they were able to create a powerful water filter that can clean even the muckiest of water and make it potable. This product is not only amazing for the environment but it improved millions of lives across the globe. 

For my first post I will be discussing the MySQL and MariaDB and the differences between the two. 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oN57c23gemqEUm6_i8TZ70poQb1oBMA9/view

*Here is a TL;DR in case you prefer that:*
MySQL is a relational database that was created back in 1995. It was a cheap alternative to Microsoft and Oracle’s expensive software and was essential in building the internet. What set MySQL apart was the fact that it was using dual licensing. This meant that anyone could use the software for their web products and this led to a massive blast in popularity through 2004-2005. Large tech companies like Facebook, Netflix, Youtube, and Airbnb still use the technology to this day. A major factor in the popularization of MySQL is WordPress. Wordpress powers 34% of the entire web and it was written in PHP and using MySQL as its database. 
On the other hand you have MariaDB. The goal of MariaDB was to unify MySQL and heal its woe’s as it became very fragmented over the years. MariaDB served as a “full binary replacement” which means you could practically replace MySQL for MariaDB with little to no effort. The creation of MariaDB ensured this spectacular software could remain free and open source without companies like Oracle trying to take it over. The difference here that sets MariaDB apart is that it is fully GPL licensed instead of dual licensed. This means that it is protected legally from Oracle trying to take the software and merge it over to their databases.

**To summarize,** MySQL has a wealth of full time engineers working on the project to this day but in the end MariaDB acts as a new and improved MySQL with its improved performance and quicker patches and updates. 

Sources: 
http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Open-core-or-dual-licensing-The-example-of-MySQL-1367824.html
https://kinsta.com/blog/mariadb-vs-mysql/