Welcome to the MySQL contributor community

[henrikingo-oracle]

(This welcome note is for everyone who comes here, but in particular it is linked to from the Contributing to MySQL guide.)

MySQL is one of the oldest and largest open source projects in the world. As the founders used Xemacs, GCC and GDB to create the first versions of MySQL, they were inspired by the ideals of the Free Software Movement and wanted to give something back to the community themselves. Ever since the MySQL source code was released on tcx.se in 1996, significant improvements have been developed by the user community: Porting to Microsoft Windows was done by an Italian developer in 1997; Semi-sync replication was developed by Google Ads team in 2007, numerous InnoDB improvements from people all over the world, to optimizer improvements from Tencent and Alibaba in 2025. And let's not forget that both of the storage engines we use today: InnoDB and NDB, are originally 3rd party partner products.

Recognizing that the contributor community is an important factor in the success of the MySQL open-source project, we have in 2026 been implementing major changes in the development process. That is, how MySQL's future roadmap is planned and decided, how patches are submitted, reviewed and committed, and who can participate. The overarching strategic objective behind all of these changes is to make it even easier than before to participate in MySQL development- To participate in making MySQL better for everyone.

We are adopting modern tooling, as both the code, project management and discussions move to GitHub. We are introducing a formal, multi-stakeholder governance structure. For the first time ever, contributors can formally become MySQL committers, regardless of who their employer is. All of this is necessary to scale the breadth and velocity of MySQL Innovation.

Whether you are just passing by to drop a bug fix, or you'll be working on bigger projects, we hope that you will find the MySQL community a helpful and friendly open source community.

Welcome to the MySQL open source project.

Henrik & the MySQL community team

(Back to the Contributing to MySQL Guide if you came here from there.)