[development] Drop MySQL 3 support

[Gerhard Killesreiter]

Martin Afanasjew wrote:
> Gerhard Killesreiter wrote:
>> Hi there!
>>
>> MySQL AB (the company behind our most used database) has announced a 
>> change in support options for their database products.
>>
>> http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/mysql_lifecycle_policy.pdf
>>
>> According to this document, the active support for MySQL 3.23 will end 
>> at the last of this month (ie on two weeks) and the extended support 
>> will end on the end of this year.
> 
> This is a really strange document. According to it would be worth 
> dropping MySQL 4.1 as well since they stop supporting it by the end of 
> this year. And if you compute the time between GA (general availability) 
> and end of active support it gets shorter with every release. I really 
> don't understand why this is the way it is...

This is explained on the first page of the document.

>> Dropping both MySQL 3 and 4.0 would enable us to rewrite some parts of 
>> our SQL queries. The extend of this would need to be researched.
> 
> Dropping support outdated versions is fine as long as there are good 
> technical reasons and I fully support this. Having said this I really 
> would like to see some examples where Drupal would improve due to this 
> change. I hope it's not just for the sake of dropping support...

Subselects might enable us to put two queries into one.

>> I know that people will argue with "but there are so many ISPs that 
>> still run 3.23". ISPs that still run 3.23 after it has been retired by 
>> the supporting company are probably not worth the money you them.
> 
> 3.23 is simply rock solid and as long as it is properly supported I 
> can't see a reason for hosters to upgrade. Especially since almost all 
> software (including Drupal) still supports it...

There will not be any security updates for 3.23 from MySQL AB. Enough 
reason to drop it.


Cheers,
	Gerhard