Monty,
We're speaking about different MySQL users when. One I know about would not mix "trivial" and "bzr command" in the same sentence. Seriously if you're looking for mass market adoption you need to look at users not developers. You should not expect them to have any experience with bzr or even building software.
My point is the broader adoption you want the more simple things should be for people to understand. I currently see it is not for a lot of people.
Regarding bugs remember MariaDB is not MySQL - In MySQL bugs database I see the now the notes which change bug fixed in 5.0.55 and separate one 5.1.33, so I do not really need to try to compare anything here. With MariaDB I need to clearly know MySQL Baseline.
One can trivially check that by doing one bzr command.
I don't see this to be a big problem as most MySQL users have in the
past shown a clear interest in getting releases more often and in that
discussion it has never been seen as a problem when a fix from an
earlier version is pushed up.
Normally you can find that out trivially from the date the bug fix was
pushed. If the server release date is notable higher than the approved
bug fix, then the fix is in.
Peter> Finding what 5.0 version was last at that time and also acconting for "race"
Peter> condition when they were both in the progress is not easy.
Peter> But also it is a lot different topic. People see 5.0 and 5.1 as just
Peter> different versions they are not compared.
Not true. If you have a problem with a bug you always have to think
about releases as the bug is first fixed in the oldest releases and
then slowly moved to newer releases. We have done this for 10+ years
already and I can't remember a single email from anyone being
concerned about this particular topic.
(There are of course some people that may be concerned, but I doubt
it's a significant % of our users).
Regards,
Monty