NewsForge: MySQL’s MaxDB: A Work in Progress

“Most people working in the database world know about the open
source database MySQL, but fewer are familiar with MaxDB, MySQL’s
enterprise-class brother. The current MaxDB release is basically a
rebranded release of SAP DB with a number of incremental
improvements.

“The lineage of MaxDB goes back several years, involves a few
companies, and uses a few names. It grew out of Adabas, a database
that has been around since the 1980s. A version of Adabas was
obtained by the German software company SAP AB in the mid-1990’s
and eventually rebranded as SAP DB. Displaying amazing foresight
for the time, SAP AB decided to release the source code of SAP DB
under the GNU GPL in the year 2000. Unfortunately, this event was
not promoted by SAP AB, so SAP DB languished as perhaps the most
significant yet obscure Open Source project in the
community…”

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