No, it's not crippleware - it's the world's most popular open source database software.
MySQL Community Edition is available under the GPL license and is supported by a huge and active community of open source developers [1].   Among the many recent improvements are some substantial performance improvements delivered in MySQL 5.6 [2].
We're interested in user choice, and we want do what we can to help create the best possible user experience for those users that choose to use MySQL with Fedora.
Andrew


[1] http://www.mysql.com/products/community/
[2] http://dimitrik.free.fr/blog/archives/2013/02/mysql-performance-mysql-56-vs-mysql-55-vs-mariadb-55.html



On 2/17/2013 5:57 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
Dennis Jacobfeuerborn wrote:
Also MySQL 5.6 gains some of its speed through [non-Free] commercial
extensions (like e.g. the thread pool).
That's one more reason to NOT ship MySQL in Fedora now that there is an 
alternative: It's crippleware!

All of this benefits Fedoras users.
Software intentionally crippled to be able to sell proprietary "extensions" 
to it is NOT beneficial to our users!

Besides I don't think excluding a specific piece of software without
technical reasons would set a somewhat dangerous precedent. As long as
there are people willing to maintain these packages and the packages
themselves follow all necessary guidelines they should be allowed to do
so.
Just look at how this has been handled with XFree86 vs. X.Org: The 
maintainers of XFree86 in Fedora decided to switch to X.Org, so the package 
was renamed, rebased to the new upstream and Obsoletes made the migration 
automatic and with no hassle at all for our users. Why can't we do the same 
here?

Just because some Oracle folks desperately want to keep THEIR version of the 
software in Fedora (and the ones who actually would be doing the packaging 
haven't even spoken here, nor do they have any experience with official 
Fedora packages, as opposed to crappy upstream RPMs which would almost 
certainly not pass review as is), we're going to 1. overrule the experienced 
Fedora MySQL maintainers and 2. maybe even require the users to migrate 
MANUALLY to the recommended solution? Surely that cannot be it! I don't see 
why that would be in Fedora's nor its users' interest.

I sure hope you aren't going to propose reviving XFree86 in Fedora!

        Kevin Kofler


--

Andrew Rist | Interoperability Architect
Oracle Corporate Architecture Group
Redwood Shores, CA | 650.506.9847