The talk at the FOSDEM conference in 2023 discussed the differences between MySQL 8 and MariaDB 10.10. The speaker congratulated the MariaDB team on going public and mentioned that the two databases have diverged substantially since their shared roots. The talk highlighted the differences in development model, ownership, open source components, release frequency, architecture, and more. The speaker also discussed specific features and improvements in both databases. The presentation concluded with information about an upcoming conference and a relay team opportunity for attendees to participate in a marathon.