[debian-mysql] status of MariaDB in Debian

[Lucas Nussbaum]

Hi,

I've been approached by Monty Widenius and Simon Phipps about the state
of MariaDB in Debian, as most distros are providing MariaDB packages,
and sometimes make it the default.

In a DebConf talk [1] (skip to 42:00 if you only want to hear about
Debian packaging-related stuff), they clearly stated that they are
willing to provide manpower that will act as "slaves of the mysql
maintainers" and "slaves of the security team".
[1] http://penta.debconf.org/dc13_schedule/events/1073.en.html

It seems that the best plan would be to provide MariaDB as an
alternative, rather than replace MySQL. MariaDB aims at staying
compatible with MySQL, so it is not impossible that we can make it
a drop-in replacement (though it was mentioned that having foo-mysql
work with MariaDB could raise trademark issues even if it's only about
the mysql API).

Security team, ftpmasters, do you have comments on that?

MySQL maintainers, would you be willing to mentor MariaDB people?
Is someone else on pkg-mysql-maint@ willing to?

Thanks,

Lucas