Announcing MySQL 5.0 Production/GA release

[Kaj Arnö]

Dear user of MySQL,

It is my pleasure to announce the production release of MySQL 5.0, which
is hereby GA (Generally Available). Since my announcement of the Release
Candidate less than a month ago, no bugs have been reported that require
a second Release Candidate. This, combined with the feedback from over
two million downloads of MySQL 5.0 during its beta phase, give us the
confidence to give MySQL 5.0 the status of Current Production Release,
or GA.

In the Release Candidate announcement less than a month ago, I described
MySQL 5.0 as "the most important release in MySQL's history", and that
is certainly the case. Thus, I encourage you all to:

- get your own copy at
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html

- do all of your new database development using MySQL 5.0

- upgrade your current MySQL environments to MySQL 5.0, as soon as
you've properly verified your production applications against it
(be sure to take a full backup of your data before upgrading, study
the relevant documentation, and if you have a MySQL Network support
contract, consult first with the MySQL Support Team)

Let me also underline that we continue to offer some earlier versions of
MySQL Server for download. However, you should expect maintenance
releases for earlier versions only in limited form:

- for MySQL 4.1, only when serious bugs affecting significant user
groups are reported

- for MySQL 4.0, only when security bugs are reported

MySQL 5.0 is the most ambitious release to date for MySQL AB. We have
added functionality that our users have requested from us over many
years. However, everything we do at MySQL centers around our three
priorities of Performance, Reliability, and Ease of Use. MySQL 5.0 is
certainly true to these company-wide values.

Key new features of MySQL 5.0 come in three groups:

a) ANSI SQL standard features formerly unknown to MySQL

b) ANSI SQL standard compliance of existing MySQL features

c) New MySQL Storage Engines, Tools and Extensions

The new ANSI SQL features include:

- Views (both read-only and updatable views)

- Stored Procedures and Stored Functions, using the SQL:2003 syntax,
which is also used by IBM's DB2

- Triggers (row-level)

- Server-side cursors (read-only, non-scrolling)

Implementing ANSI SQL standard ways of using existing MySQL features
means there will be fewer unpleasant surprises ("gotchas") for those
migrating to MySQL from other database systems:

- Strict Mode: MySQL 5.0 adds a mode that complies with standard SQL
in a number of areas in which earlier versions did not; we now do
strict data type checking and issue errors for all invalid dates,
numbers and strings as expected

- INFORMATION_SCHEMA: An ANSI SQL-compliant set of tables that
provide database metadata, in parallel with the MySQL-specific
SHOW commands

- Precision Math: A new library for fixed-point arithmetic, giving
high accuracy for financial and mathematical operations

- VARCHAR Data Type: The maximum effective length of a VARCHAR column
has increased to 65,532 bytes; also, stripping of trailing whitespace
no longer occurs

New MySQL Storage Engines, Tools and Extensions are:

- XA Distributed Transactions

- ARCHIVE Storage Engine for storing large amounts of data without
indexes in a very small footprint, intended for historical data that
may be needed for future audit compliance (Sarbanes Oxley or
otherwise)

- FEDERATED Storage Engine for accessing data ín tables of remote
databases rather than in local tables (only in MAX version)

- Instance Manager: a tool to start and stop MySQL Server, even remotely

To find out more details on what's new in MySQL 5.0, follow the pointers
from http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/mysql-5-0-nutshell.html

To find out the changes specific to MySQL 5.0.15 in relation to 5.0.13
(the release candidate), see the two files
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/news-5-0-14.html
and http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/news-5-0-15.html (5.0.14 was not
released publicly).

MySQL 5.0 is also reflected in our GUI tools and Connectors:

MySQL Administrator 1.1.4 and MySQL Query Browser 1.1.17 are aware of
the new MySQL 5.0 features. They can be used to write and test stored
procedures, create views, include them in scheduled backups and much more.

The latest shipping versions of our Connectors work with MySQL 5.0, and
all connectors (MySQL Connector/ODBC, Connector/J and Connector/NET)
support all MySQL 5.0 flagship features.

Of course, we recognize that any piece of software contains bugs. We
continue to need your involvement to ensure that MySQL 5.0 is the best
that it possibly can be. Should you find any issues in MySQL 5.0, report
them through our bug-reporting system at http://bugs.mysql.com/ and we
will improve upon MySQL 5.0 in upcoming maintenance releases.

The MySQL team looks forward to your input

- in our MySQL Forums at http://forums.mysql.com/
- in the bug database at http://bugs.mysql.com/
- in our mailing lists at http://lists.mysql.com/
- in the PlanetMySQL blog aggregation via
http://www.planetmysql.org/newfeed.php
- in the User Comments of our manual at
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/index.html
(specifically for Documentation comments)
- and in the form of downloads from
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html

MySQL 5.0 is available now. Go download it, install it, and take benefit
from its many new features.

And do keep us informed on how MySQL can help support you!

Kaj Arnö
VP Community Relations
MySQL AB



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2005 07:27PM by Edwin DeSouza.