Proposal to make MariaDB the default MySQL variant in Ubuntu 25.04

[Otto Kekäläinen]

Hi!

..
> Did you see this reply from Lena, which was waiting for input?
>
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2024-September/043133.html

Indeed, this, for some reason, didn't get past spam filters.. Replying now:

>  * The term "default" could refer to a number of things when it comes
>   to us providing packages in Ubuntu. I'll clarify some of the
>   possible meanings below, and how they may apply in this situation.

I mean specifically the implementation of default-mysql-server in
https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mysql/-/blob/mysql-defaults/debian/master/debian/rules#L7-13
which results in e.g. "apt install wordpress" installing MariaDB on
Debian, but MySQL on Ubuntu.

Knowledgeable users can, of course, run "apt install mariadb-server
wordpress" but for the general users the way Ubuntu has this
configured results in many running MySQL when they would probably be
better served by having MariaDB as per the arguments I listed in my
initial email. I don't see any particular reason why Ubuntu should
favour Oracle in this selection. Ubuntu is in fact the only major
Linux distribution that has kept MySQL all these years.

Yes, MySQL remains under GPLv2, but I would argue that there is no
actual openness nor community. Note for example the latest commit at
https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/commits/8.0/ is from July 12th -
no public changes in almost 3 months.

- Otto