MySQL into the Ports: Why Version 84 after 81?

J

joneum@

Developer
After I released MySQL version 8.4 in the ports with the great support of samm aka Alex S., some people asked me why versions 8.2 and 8.3 are missing.
samm and I have been discussing this topic and we are both confused about Oracle's current release policy.
On the MySQL website you can find versions 8.0 and 8.4 LTS as "Supported versions [1]".
Also, on downloads/mysql [2], all versions except 8.0/8.4 are moved to the "Archived Versions" section with the statement "Please note that these are old
versions. New versions contain the latest bug fixes and functions!".

If you follow this statement, version 8.1 contained in the ports would already be EOL.
In the changelogs of the MySQL versions from 8.0 to 8.4, however, there is nothing to indicate which version is really EOL and which is not.
Therefore, we will first observe what exactly Oracle has planned before we invest a lot of time in ports that could already be EOL.

If you have any hints that versions 8.2 and 8.3 are not EOL, I would be happy to have a discussion :-)


[1] https://www.mysql.com/support/supportedplatforms/database.html

[2] https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/
 
Thank you for bringing attention to the topic.
My (possibly wrong) understanding of the topic:
  • Oracle now provides "LTS" and "innovation" releases following same numbering scheme
  • Innovation releases are deprecated at the moment when new innovation (or LTS) is done and are not intended for the prod and should be considered as "feature preview" with developers as a target audience. As such they will not get minor releases (e.g. 8.1.2, 8.1.3 etc). See "innovation releases will be supported until the next major & minor release" from the Oracle blog
  • From other side LTS releases do have official support time (5 years of premier and 3 years of extended) and minor releases will be produces until they are EoL
Based on that my proposal is:
  1. Focus more on LTS releases as they are they most important for the normal users. We now do have 8.0 and 8.4 in the ports so things are looking good. MySQL 8.0 support ends in 1 year and 11 months, so we have a lot of time before switching default version to 8.4 (which is 64bit only, so all 32 bit arch clients would suffer)
  2. IMHO its good idea to create mysql-innovation-client/mysql-innovation-server ports where we should put latest innovation release once it is available from the oracle. This should also help to track changes and ensure that port is still buildable, so less pain to do LTS releases once they are ready. Port should have some install/upgrade message that it is not recomended for production usage and LTS releases should be used instead. As such we will not have many innovation releases in parallel, so less efforts to maintain.
Anyway, its only my understanding, i think that using same versioning/naming for LTS and "innovation" releases is very confusing. Would be nice to get any inside from the Oracle about it.
 
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