DBD::mysql path forward

[Patrick M. Galbraith]

Hi all,

After talking to Pali and looking at how other drivers have handled the 
issue, the best way forward will be to deal with solving the UTF-8 issue 
correctly as was attempted in May. This will be a problem for some, but 
only due to having to been accustomed to a work-around that relies on a 
intermittent and buggy implementation. The plan is to give ample time to 
let people prepare and comment as well as give them a chance to try the 
changes and adjust prior to stable release. I'm going to look through 
the mailing list and find particularly those who had problems back in 
May and June when we tried this before and work with them in advance of 
the change.

DBD::mysql should be on par with all the other DBD drivers and allow 
transparent usage regardless of backing RDBMS, and this really is the 
only way. It will also allow for other fixes to proceed and the driver 
to continue improving and supporting all versions and enhancements of 
MySQL and MariaDB.

Please do give us your thoughts on this as we want to be as helpful and 
transparent as possible.

Thank you!

Patrick