See new wiki page at https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-server/-/wikis/MariaDB-in-Debian
Since 2013 there has been a schema in place so that packages can define that they can be satisfied with any MySQL variant using virtual-mysql-* dependencies.
Since 2016 June a new schema has been introduced, where packages can be defined that they depend on exactly one MySQL variant that the release team has decided is default. These default-mysql-* metapackages are provided by the mysql-defaults package.
For details, see https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2016/09/msg00000.html
Summary:
- BEFORE: Build-Depends: libmysqlclient-dev
- AFTER: Build-Depends: default-libmysqlclient-dev
- BEFORE: Depends: mysql-server | virtual-mysql-server OR Depends: mariadb-server | virtual-mysql-server
- AFTER: Depends: default-mysql-server | virtual-mysql-server
- BEFORE: Depends: mysql-client | virtual-mysql-client OR Depends: mariadb-client | virtual-mariadb-client
- AFTER: Depends: default-mysql-client | default-mysql-client