Proposed F19 Feature: Replace MySQL with MariaDB

[Ales Kozumplik]

On 01/22/2013 10:06 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Yes, that's the general idea --- any dependencies on mysql should result
> in installing mariadb, unless the user takes specific action to get
> mysql instead.  Ideally we'd just do the standard Provides/Obsoletes
> dance for replacing one package with another, but I'm not quite sure how
> that should work if we still want original mysql to be installable.  Any
> thoughts from RPM experts would be welcome.

I'm not an RPM expert, yet if mariadb obsoletes mysql and mariadb is 
installed then specifically selecting mysql package for installation 
will not be possible (because it is obsoleted).

Here's what I think could work for f19: provide mariadb as it is, give 
it all mysql provides just in case. No conflicts, no obsoletes. That way 
both packages are installable. Tell Fedora maintainers that mysql is 
being phased out and they should change requires to mariadb. Make mysql 
part of no compose group so it doesn't get by default installed by 
Anaconda, only when people explicitly do 'yum install mysql' or have 
mysql in kickstart.

In f20 either remove mysql completely or have it obsoleted by mariadb.

The key is taking it slowly, not all at once. I'm saying this as someone 
who participates in maintaining yum et al. and someone who uses mysql in 
Fedora.

Ales