This is another, in-case-you-missed-it, but it is definitely worth mentioning again:

MariaDB 5.3 is now GA

So, if you’re using MariaDB 5.1 or 5.2, I’d definitely recommend upgrading to the new MariaDB 5.3.

Also, if you’re a Windows user using MySQL 5.1, I’d highly consider making the switch to MariaDB 5.3 due to all of the Windows-specific improvements in it.

MariaDB 5.3 Enhancements:

• Subquery optimizations
• Semi-join subquery optimizations
• Non-semi-join optimizations
• Subquery Cache
• Subquery Optimizations Map
• Optimizations for derived tables and views
• Disk access optimization
• Join optimizations
• Index Merge improvements
• Optimizer control
• NoSQL-style interfaces
• Group commit for the binary log
• Replication and binary logging enhancements
• Microsecond support for NOW() and timestamp, time, and

In case you didn’t notice it last week, MariaDB 5.5 (5.5.20, specifically) has been released.

It’s a release I’ve been looking forward to for a while now, so I’m very excited that it’s now available!

Note that it is currently ‘alpha’ since it is the very first release of MariaDB 5.5. However, it is not your typical new ‘alpha’, so I would expect it to be GA in the not-so-distant future (please don’t quote me on this though, as I have no idea of the true time table – but the goal is for the next 5.5 release to be ‘beta’).

You can download MariaDB 5.5 from the following location:

http://downloads.askmonty.org/mariadb/5.5/

There are also more details on this