[arch-dev-public] [RFC] Migration to MariaDB

[Bartłomiej Piotrowski]

Hello guys,

Because Oracle is Oracle is Oracle(…) I would like to propose migration
to MariaDB.

Jokes aside, the biggest problem with MySQL situation is that it becomes
more and more closed source. Oracle stopped publishing regression
tests[1], informative security advisories, they even hide bug reports
and not include them in release notes[2]. Very often their bzr
repository is falling behind new releases[3].

On the other hand, MariaDB is truly open source (it doesn't have
enterprise-only options) and has open development model. Security
advisories are published first on the mailing list for packagers with a
patch for current release and information when the bug will be fixed and
when the information about security hole can be published (Another
advantage for ricers -- some benchmarks show that MariaDB is faster.)

From packaging side, MariaDB is (still) drop-in replacement for MySQL.
Unfortunately they are not fully compatible[4] and I don't want to lie
that I tested every package depending on MySQL before I pushed Maria to
[community], but since April 2012 there has been no bug report about
breakage. However I don't want to use replaces=, because clearly it
won't work for everyone.
Additionally switching now should be less problematic. MySQL 5.6 is
already out and it is not as compatible with incoming MariaDB 10 as it
was with 5.5 branch. While we keep Maria and MySQL branches in sync, it
should be quite safe.

To get back to the point… This is how I would see the migration plan:

1. Synchronize MariaDB and MySQL systemd units.
2. Move MariaDB to [extra].
3. Rebuild packages depending on mysql/libmysqlclient/mysql-clients
against its MariaDB counterparts.
4. Announce MySQL deprecation.
5. After month, drop MySQL to AUR.

What do you think?

Cheers,

[1] http://blog.mariadb.org/disappearing-test-cases/
[2]
http://ronaldbradford.com/blog/when-is-a-crashing-mysql-bug-not-a-bug-2012-08-15/
[3]
http://www.mysqlperformanceblog.com/2012/08/16/where-to-get-a-bzr-tree-of-the-latest-mysql-releases/
[4] https://kb.askmonty.org/en/mariadb-vs-mysql-compatibility

-- 
Bartłomiej Piotrowski
http://bpiotrowski.pl/

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