Make MySQL 5.0.15 requirement official

I'd go as far as saying whatever 5.0.x release was the first "stable" (non alpha, non beta, non RC) should be our target. Does anyone actually run a MySQL release in its first dozen or so patch versions? :-)

I don't think this issue is minor as it kinda represents an API change (for example, in the issue catch refers to, the patch contains a varchar > 255 bytes, which isn't allowed in MySQL versions < 5.0.3). Changing the MySQL version requirement is changing the rules of the game, however slightly it may be.

I'm with Crell to take the first stable release as minimum MySQL version requirement for D7. I tried to find per-version usage statistics for MySQL but didn't find any.

According to the MySQL release history, 5.0.15 was the first production release:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/news-5-0-x.html

5.0.3 to 5.0.15 was a very short window of only a few months, so I think it's extremely unlikely that anyone is still running a production server on a 5.0 < 5.0.15. MySQL AB (or whoever owns them this week) isn't going to support that, I suspect.

Although just to muddy the waters even more, Active Support for the 5.0 series just ended. There's only another 2 years left of extended support until the end of 2011. So I suspect come Drupal 8 we'll need to bump the requirements to 5.1. Note for future reference. :-)

Back to the topic at hand, I'd support setting 5.0.15 as the minimum MySQL version for Drupal 7. Who wants to roll the patch?

Patch attached bumping the mimimum required MySQL version to 5.0.15.

edit: typo.

Sounds reasonable to me too.

For reference, Debian Etch (the old stable release), includes 5.0.32... The package first landed sometimes in 2007.

Committed to CVS HEAD. Thanks.

I have updated the System requirements handbook page to reflect this change.