Re: Proposing the retirement of default-mysql-* metapackages for Forky

"[email protected]" <[email protected]> Fri, 22 May 2026 16:46:47 -0400

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.general
Message-ID	<[email protected]>

Hi Otto,

Thank you for starting this discussion!

> With the recent releases of MySQL 9.7 and MariaDB 12.3, there is now
> enough divergence between the two codebases to warrant dismantling
> this metapackage. Their SQL dialects, authentication methods and other
> features have drifted to the point where treating them as
> interchangeable drop-in alternatives under a single virtual package is
> becoming misleading. We have already seen this friction for example in
> the Perl ecosystem had to split into libdbd-mysql-perl and
> libdbd-mariadb-perl because the underlying drivers can no longer
> support both engines.

I agree that MySQL and MariaDB have diverged substantially enough at this point to where they should
not be considered interchangeable anymore. Likewise, I agree that it would probably be best to get
rid of the default-mysql-* packages.

What is the plan for packages that are made specifically for MySQL, but happen to currently work
with MariaDB in Debian? On the Ubuntu side, I would like them to continue depending on MySQL with as
little delta as possible. The best way to do that would probably be to either keep those packages in
unstable if they need to depend on libmysqlclient-dev or mysql-server, or use the OR operator in the
dependency, such as `mysql-server | mariadb-server` with mysql-server listed first.

Thanks,
Lena

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