The Ultimate Guide to High Availability with MariaDB
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MySQL Client Library 3.23.58

Download | Release Notes

Release date: 30 Aug 2010

Note that this library is superseded by the new MariaDB Client Library for C, which is also LGPL.

This is the LGPL MySQL client library version 3.23.58. This library can be used to connect to MySQL or MariaDB.

Normally you should use the standard libmysql client library to connect to MariaDB/MySQL. The main reason for wanting to use this one is if you want to distribute your non GPL application with MySQL support (to provide some optional feature) but don't want to change the license of your application to GPL.

This code is based on the LGPL libmysql client library from MySQL 3.23.

The following are the main known limitations:

  • You have to compile your application(s) to use this library (as the structures used by the C API are a bit different)
  • You have to use the --old-password option in MySQL (as the old client library only supports the old authentication)
  • You can't use prepared statements (as the old client library doesn't have support for these)
  • Not all client character sets are supported.
  • It doesn't compile on windows (should not be hard to fix; It's mainly the compiler environment files that is missing)
  • It's not as secure as the standard libmysql as it uses the old password protocol.

This library could be used as the basis for a full, up-to-date LGPL MariaDB client library that is a binary drop in replacement for the current MySQL / MariaDB GPL library.

Besides using this library as the basis, the other options are:

  • Use the new MariaDB Client Library for C, which is also LGPL.
  • Write a new client library from scratch.
  • Use the Drizzle client library as the base for a new client library.

Monty Program Ab is about to start a project for creating a new free client library that is binary compatible with the old client library. See Monty's blog about this for more information.

If you want to be part of this development effort, you can discuss this on the maria-developers mailing list.

If you are interested in sponsoring this effort, you can contact Monty Program.

See also:

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