MySQL Notes
According to the changelog for the 5.1.12 beta release:
Incompatible change: Support for the BerkeleyDB (BDB) engine has been dropped from this release. Any existing tables that are in BDB format will not be readable from within MySQL from 5.1.12 or newer. You should convert your tables to another storage engine before upgrading to 5.1.12.
An interesting perspective from Lisa Vaas of eWeek.com on Oracle's purchase of InnoDB: The Truth Comes Out: Oracle Bought InnoDB Without a Clue
In MySQL, user is not a reserved word and can be used as-is
as a table name. As web applications in particular often have their own
user table, it is in common use, which is perfectly understandable.
However, according to the various ANSI SQL standards, user
is a reserved word (see e.g. here or here), and this leads to problems when converting
MySQL schema definitions to other databases, such as that described
here.
Note that as of MySQL 5.0.19, even when selecting MySQL's ANSI Mode, "user" does not appear to treated as a reserved word,
and no warnings are given when it is used to create a table.
This news.com article names some dates for the introduction of the new database engine from Solid™ Inc.: a prototype will be demonstrated on April 24, a beta with sourcecode will be available in July, and the release version will come "in the fourth quarter" (presumably of 2006).
The new engine will be dual-licensed (GPL / commercial) along the same lines as InnoDB.
The MySQL database engine merry-go-round is continuing to spin. Having "lost" two of its transactional backends to the 800lb gorilla of the database world, Oracle, MySQL has been stepping up efforts to acquire and develop independent technologies. Following onto its acquisition of Netfrastructure, ZDNet reports that Solid™ Information Technology will be making its solidDB Storage Engine for MySQL available as open source under the GPL from June.
What this entails precisely is not clear. Solid seems to specialize in high-performance database solutions for the telecommunications industry with an emphasis on in-memory operations. There appears to be no mention of MySQL on its site, and nor does MySQL have - as of the time of writing - any announcement in its News section.