It's great to see the fruits of many years of labour being released as GA. Work on MySQL 5.5 started several years ago, and I remember announcing 5.5.0-m2 almost exactly a year ago, on 15 December 2009.
Seeing Oracle release MySQL 5.5 under the GPL is something I very much welcome. Access to the new Open Source features is a welcome Christmas gift.
As opposed to earlier versions, we're unlikely to see all that many reports about the exact quality level in MySQL 5.5. During MySQL AB and Sun Microsystem times, even internally discovered bugs in new features used to be out in the public scrutiny of the MySQL bugs database, yet now, external users are not in a similar position to attest to the quality of the newly released features. The fact that some features were removed that along the way were in the 5.5 release, like thread pooling, can be positively interpreted as a sign of quality considerations have been taken into account. Let's be happy about that.
On behalf of the users of MySQL, I've sometimes been critical of Oracle's actions. In fact, some of Oracle's actions are the very reason why SkySQL Ab was established, as an alternative for the MySQL users. Nonetheless, although I may come with criticism again later on, let me state that I'm quite happy not just for SkySQL but for the entire MySQL ecosystem that Oracle has released MySQL 5.5 as GA under the GPL.
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