We tried Veritica first, and found the whole process and support system quite poor (for our more amateurish level) whereas Calpont’s support system, even for Community members is ridiculously good. They are keen to help and don’t assume that everyone is a pro.

Apart from the performance gains seen, we are finding that understanding what Calpont are up to, when and what they are planning to release and fix, and their timekeeping is simply fantastic.

First, thanks for the comments on our omission of how we plan to release and label new versions in our last blog entry (the one that kicked off this thread). I’ve posted a new entry that describes our intentions on that front and welcome any input and revisions that the community thinks is necessary. You can read it here: http://infinidb.org/infinidb-blog/more-on-infinidb-release-intentions-and-practice.html. Also let us know if you would like more details in this area.

Next, yes indeed I was one of the proponents of having more of a Fedora/RHEL model for MySQL some years back. Marten always encouraged us to try new approaches to things, and to me, having faster community releases with small new features that folks wanted sooner than later seemed good to do. But then we hit technical glitches with producing the builds and some in the community voiced their opinion that it wasn’t the approach they’d prefer, so things were changed again. Sometimes you never know until you try.

Lastly, regarding criticism: I’ve only been at Calpont since September 2009 so I haven’t been a part of every decision made (but pretty much am now). I think Baron’s criticism of the failure to release the InfiniDB source code as promised last year was warranted. A good community holds a project/vendor to the claims and promises they make and when those promises aren’t kept – and there is no “head’s up” communication of the circumstances that have caused the ‘miss’ – then a deserved poke in the eye should be expected.

Thanks again and let us know what more we can be doing at this time.

First, thanks for the comments on our omission of how we plan to release and label new versions in our last blog entry (the one that kicked off this thread). I’ve posted a new entry that describes our intentions on that front and welcome any input and revisions that the community thinks is necessary. You can read it here: http://infinidb.org/infinidb-blog/more-on-infinidb-release-intentions-and-practice.html. Also let us know if you would like more details in this area.

Next, yes indeed I was one of the proponents of having more of a Fedora/RHEL model for MySQL some years back. Marten always encouraged us to try new approaches to things, and to me, having faster community releases with small new features that folks wanted sooner than later seemed good to do. But then we hit technical glitches with producing the builds and some in the community voiced their opinion that it wasn’t the approach they’d prefer, so things were changed again. Sometimes you never know until you try.

Lastly, regarding criticism: I’ve only been at Calpont since September 2009 so I haven’t been a part of every decision made (but pretty much am now). I think Baron’s criticism of the failure to release the InfiniDB source code as promised in the Spring of last year was warranted. A good community holds a project/vendor to the claims and promises they make and when those promises aren’t kept – and there is no “head’s up” communication of the circumstances that have caused the ‘miss’ – then a deserved poke in the eye should be expected.

Thanks again and let us know what more we can be doing at this time.

Maybe I didn’t read closely enough. But seriously, I am a software engineer and I basically decided it was too complex to try to understand fully. My voice might not be educated, but perhaps that in itself has meaning. I have just been shaking my head incredulously as things have gone from confusing to more confusing. This isn’t a criticism of you personally — I am sure you really tried to make things sane, and I can get a hint of the politics and bureaucracy that must rear its head around things like this. I don’t have the patience to tolerate that — I definitely wouldn’t last long in your job.

I’m well aware that Robin is at InfiniDB, and I’ve been a perhaps unjustly harsh critic of him at times. I criticized InfiniDB for dragging their feet on releasing the promised open-source code. Then they released it. Now it looks to me like they’re doing some things really well. Among other things, I’ve seen evidence of a focus on instrumenting their product to make rigorous performance optimization possible, and now this. If they keep going, I’ll be at risk of becoming a fan.