Just wondering what the chances / likelihood are of switching to the internal "mysqlnd" (mysql native driver) extension which is supposedly better performing and would eliminate a requires on libmysqlclient. More information at the URL. Seems to only require changing the compile options to use "mysqlnd" instead of a path.
I think, mysqlnd mainly have sense on system not under the MySQL FLOSS exception which can use standard mysql library.
The purpose of this driver is not only to avoid the license issues, but to get more speed and better memory usage. Please see here: http://us.php.net/mysqli.mysqlnd Because MySQL Native Driver is written as a PHP extension, it is tightly coupled to the workings of PHP. This leads to gains in efficiency, especially when it comes to memory usage, as the driver uses the PHP memory management system. It also supports the PHP memory limit. Using MySQL Native Driver leads to comparable or better performance than using MySQL Client Library, it always ensures the most efficient use of memory. One example of the memory efficiency is the fact that when using the MySQL Client Library, each row is stored in memory twice, whereas with the MySQL Native Driver each row is only stored once in memory.
php-mysqlnd is now available in fedora >= 16