Latest MySQL Release is Underwhelming, Say Some DB Experts

The latest release of MySQL has underwhelmed some commentators who fear Oracle -- the custodian of the open source database -- may have other priorities. From a report: Earlier this month, Oracle -- which has long marketed its range of proprietary database systems -- published the 9.0 version as an 'Innovation Release' of MySQL. MySQL 9.0 is now among the three iterations Oracle supports. The others include 8.0 (8.0.38) and the first update of the 8.4 LTS (8.4.1).

In June, Peter Zaitsev, an early MySQL engineer and founder of open source consultancy Percona, said he feared the lack of features in MySQL was a result of Oracle's focus on Heatwave, a proprietary analytics database built on MySQL. He had previously defended Oracle's stewardship of the open source database. The release of MySQL 9.0 has not assuaged those concerns, said colleague Dave Stokes, Percona technology evangelist. It had not lived up to the previous 8.0 release, which arrived with many new features.

'MySQL 9.0 is supposed to be an 'innovation release' where [Oracle offers] access to the latest features and improvements and [users] enjoy staying on top of the latest technologies,' he said. However, he pointed out most more innovative features, such as vector support and embedded JavaScript store procedures, were not in the free MySQL Community Edition and were only available on the paid-for HeatWave edition. 'The ability to store the output of an EXPLAIN command to a variable is not the level of new feature hoped for,' he said.

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