Please note that the original 5.0.20 announcement included inexact wording: SSL support is “included” in both server and client, but by default not “enabled”. SSL can be enabled by passing the SSL-related options (--ssl, --ssl-key=..., --ssl-cert=..., --ssl-ca=...) when starting the server and the client or by specifying these options in an option file. For more information, see Section 5.5.6, “Using SSL for Secure Connections”.

With version 5.0.20a, SSL support is contained in all binaries for all Unix (including Linux) and Windows platforms except AIX, HP-UX, OpenServer 6, and the RPMs specific for RHAS3/RHAS4/SLES9 on Itanium CPUs (ia64); It is also not contained in those for Novell Netware. We are trying to add these platforms in future versions.

The fix for “Command line options are ignored for mysql client” has been revoked because it introduced an incompatible change in the way the mysql command-line client selects the server to connect to. In the worst case, this might have led to a client issuing commands to a server for which they were not intended, and this must not happen. To help all users in understanding this subject, Section 4.2.1, “Invoking MySQL Programs” now includes additional explanation of how command options function with regard to host selection. (Bug#16855)

The code of the yaSSL library has been improved to avoid a dependency on a C++ runtime library, so a link with pure C applications is now possible on additional (but not yet all) platforms. We are working on fixing the remaining issues.