Introducing the MySQL database system

MySQL is an open source database management system based on the relational model, which is the most common method used by modern database systems to store information for various purposes.

Unlike some other legacy models—such as an object database system or a hierarchical database system—the relational model has been proven to be more user friendly and performs well beyond the other models. That's the reason why most of the modern database systems we see today are mostly using this method.

MySQL was originally developed by a Swedish company called MySQL AB, and its name is the combination of My, the name of the daughter of the company's co-founder, and SQL, the abbreviation for Structured Query Language.

Similar to Qt, MySQL has also been owned by multiple different people throughout its history. The most notable acquisition happened in 2008, where Sun Microsystems bought MySQL AB for $1 billion. One year later in 2009, Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems, and so MySQL is owned by Oracle up to this day. Even though MySQL changed hands several times, it still remains as an open source software that allows users to change the code to suit their own purposes.

Due to its open source nature, there are also other database systems out there that were derived/forked from the MySQL project, such as MariaDB, Percona Server, and so on. However, these alternatives are not fully compatible with MySQL as they have modified it to suit their own needs, and therefore some of the commands may be varied among these systems.

According to a 2017 survey carried out by Stack Overflow, MySQL is the most widely used database system among web developers, as we can see in the following screenshot:

The survey result indicates that what you learn in this chapter can be applied to not just Qt projects but also web, mobile app, and other types of applications.

Furthermore, MySQL and its variants are being used by big corporations and project groups such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, NASA, Wordpress, Drupal, Airbnb, Spotify, and so on and so forth. This means that you can easily get answers when encountering any technical issues during development.