Red Hat recently released a beta of what will become the next version of their Enterprise Linux. As many people have noticed, Red Hat opted for a forked version of MySQL 5.5 (which GA’d 3 years ago).

MySQL has come a long way in those three years, and MySQL 5.6 was released just under a year ago. It has much improved performance, it is easier to manage and it has a boatload of new and enhanced features across the board. And not least: over this last year it has proved itself to be the most stable and robust MySQL release ever.

The problem is that Red Hat 7 beta users aren’t given a choice: There is no real, recent MySQL Server in the distro. We certainly welcome competition in the MySQL area; healthy competition energizes people and drives them to perform, but that requires giving users a choice. Restricting choice restricts competition and hurts users.

So today we are launching support for the RHEL 7 beta from the official MySQL yum repository, giving users the choice between what comes with the distro and a more modern, robust and well performing product: MySQL Server 5.6. We also added MySQL Server 5.5 to provide a smooth upgrade path and give a choice to those who want to run an older version of the real MySQL. And to top it off, we have the latest Server 5.7 development milestone in there as well, for those who want to get a taste of the very latest and greatest.

With MySQL Server plus the ODBC and Python connectors in place for RHEL 7, we will proceed to add more connectors and tools over time. So keep watching this space for more news.

Now, if you are an early adopter of EL7, head over to the repo setup page for an easy way to get the real MySQL on your system. And please leave your comments here, or submit a feature request or bug report to the MySQL bug database.