I noticed this on planet.mysql: http://kb.askmonty.org/v/plans-for-56

I *again* strongly want to discourage a major version number identical with a MySQL/Oracle release.  MySQL plans a 5.6 too and I believe that there is already a source-tree available on launchpad. I think I understand that MariaDB 5.6 is planned to use MySQL 5.5 codebase.  Am I correct?

The problem arises with *generic clients* (ie clients that are supposed to work with not only one specific server version but a broad range of server versions) - including all GUI clients. Such clients will execute a "SELECT VERSION()" after connection to decide what features in the client should be enabled or not (necessary as "SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have_***"" and "SELECT ... FROM I_S" cannot always be used due to incomplete instrumentation with those)


I have now posted this complaint 2 or 3 times (including the times I complained about the use of 5.2 for a mariaDB based on MySQL 5.1 code as there is alose a (now abandoned) MySQL 5.2 tree.  I never had a reply from a MariaDB 'decisionmaker'.  Could I at least request a reply this time? Please! :-)

I repeat: It is really causing problems for *generic clients* if there are too different 5.6's with different feature sets. What solution would you suggest for a client that shall be able to connect to both MySQL5.6 and MariaDB 5.6 without confusing the features of one server with the other?


Peter
Webyog