Proposed F19 Feature: Replace MySQL with MariaDB

[Bill Nottingham]

Jaroslav Reznik (jreznik at redhat.com) said: 
> As decided by FESCo on 2012-12-05 meeting, all proposed Features are required
> to pass through the community review by announcing them on devel-announce list.
> FESCo votes on new features no sooner than a week from the announcement.
> 
> = Features/ReplaceMySQLwithMariaDB =
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/ReplaceMySQLwithMariaDB
> 
> * Detailed description:
> MariaDB is a fork of the MySQL database project that provides a drop-in 
> replacement for MySQL. It preserves API/ABI compatibility with MySQL and 
> adds some new features.
> 
> The original company behind MySQL, MySQL AB, were bought out by Sun which was 
> then bought by Oracle. Recent changes made by Oracle indicate they are moving 
> the MySQL project to be more closed. They are no longer publishing any useful 
> information about security issues (CVEs), and they are not providing complete 
> regression tests any more, and a very large fraction of the mysql bug database 
> is now not public.
> 
> MariaDB, which was founded by some of the original MySQL developers, has a more 
> open-source attitude and an active community. We have found them to be much 
> easier to work with, especially in regards to security matters.
> 
> We would like to replace MySQL with MariaDB in early development cycle for 
> Fedora 19. MySQL will continue to be available for at least one release, but
> MariaDB will become the default. Also, we do not intend to support concurrent
> installation of both packages on the same machine; pick one or the other.

What does it mean to replace it as the default if neither is ever installed
in a default 'next -> next -> next' installation?

Bill