MacPorts-MySQL Dictator wanted, prefer benevolent

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Sep 30, 2014, at 10:37 AM, Craig Treleaven wrote:

> By way of background, my MythTV ports depend on p5.16-dbd-mysql, py27-mysql and php-5-mysql.  Previously, all of these defaulted to the now-obsolete mysql5 variant.  Now, py-mysql defaults to mariadb55.  p516-dbd-mysql offers a "mariadb" variant; not "mariadb55".  php5-mysql defaults to mysqlind ("MySQL native driver") and offers a "mariadb" variant; again not "mariadb55". p5.16-dbd-mysql still defaults to mysql5.
> 
> The subtle variance in naming the variants creates confusion.  The range of defaults can lead to bloat and confusion.
> 
> Initially, I found there was a ticket related to py-mysql database variants [1] and I filed additional tickets for php5-mysql [2] and p5-dbd-mysql [3].  Since then, I thought to search for other ports that offer variants related to MySQL ('port echo variant:mysql*')--a total of 89 ports, of which about 20 are subports.
> 
> [1] https://trac.macports.org/ticket/39068
> [2] https://trac.macports.org/ticket/44481
> [3] https://trac.macports.org/ticket/44484
> 
> The tickets have been open for 6 weeks or more with no movement. I've started to do some analysis on this (with another thread asking for help) to see if we can standardize on a list of MySQL-related variant names and maybe even agree on a common default.
> 
> That's where the dictator comes in.  At the moment, I would say the obvious choices for a default MySQL variant would be mysql55, mariadb55 or, maybe, mysql56.  AFAICT there is no clear-cut, compelling reason to choose one over the others (technical, legal, religious, whatever).  Other threads have touched on this issue, recently, with no clear consensus developed.  Nonetheless, I think the MacPorts project would be better served by blessing one that can hold us for a few years rather than have various ports going in all different directions.
> 
> Is this something that the PortMgr group could take the lead on?

Indeed we have discussed this before, and it was proposed that the latest stable MariaDB version should be the default variant of ports that have MySQL support.

I don't think we can or should select a default to last us for years. We don't want to stagnate like we did with the +mysql5 variant. Rather, we should let the latest stable version be the default, and update ports as needed.

Currently, the latest stable version of MariaDB is 10.0.

The question is what to name the variants. This has also been brought up for discussion before. My most recent thread on the topic from 2 weeks ago got no replies on the list; perhaps I was too wordy.

My suggestion was that using dots in version numbers, but no underscores, would be the cleanest and most informative, which would make the complete list of proposed MySQL variant today: +mariadb5.5, +mariadb10.0, +mariadb10.1, +mysql5.1, +mysql5.5, +mysql5.6, and +percona5.6.

Currently, "port lint" says that a dot is not a valid character in a variant name, but I suspect lint is just being overly cautious, and perhaps someone with a little time could do some tests and see if variant names containing dots do in fact work correctly.