MySQL User Conference Update

I should probably post a Desktop Linux Summit update first, since that event happened first, but I'm still at the MySQL UC and have a couple minutes before the next session. The conference has been very good so far. It opened with Martin Mikos, the CEO, having some very good things to say about the future of MySQL. They have an alternative storage engine on the way for those worried about the InnoDB future at Oracle and have just renewed their InnoDB contract with a multi-year agreement. The two of these in combination may quell some peoples fears. Next came the Tim O'Reilly radar speech, which is great no matter what conference you see it at. Some presentation issues aside, this one was no exception (and I have to say, Tim did a very good job of covering things for about 15-20 minutes with no slides at all).
The sessions have all been interesting and I learned a few things I should be able to apply to LQ (I've been attending mostly performance and scaling sessions). While asking one speaker about his experience with FULLTEXT, Monty actually stepped into the conversation and took about 15 minutes to literally dig through the MySQL source and see when some changes were applied. The bad news in that the change he was after is present in the version we are running. The good news is that the recently announced falcon storage engine should have a FULLTEXT engine that rocks. After explaining the situation a bit more, we decided that in the mean time a 64-bit MySQL with a ton of RAM is probably the only viable solution. At how many companies would the founder of the company sit down with you (at a conference no less) and start digging through code. Absolutely awesome – thanks Monty! The rest of the session lineup for the day looks interesting and I should have time for at least one BOF before I have to catch my flight home. DLS update coming soon.
–jeremy
MySQL, OReilly, Open Source, Linux