My beef about MySQL used to be technical but in the last 3 - 4 years that has evaporated, and now it is purely about the license. I cannot understand why anybody uses a database for which the only official client side drivers are GPL, rather than (at least) LGPL. Unless you really truly intend that your own app will be licensed GPL and so will every other application / piece / component/ that ever needs to interact with your database in any way, it is a ball and chain around your neck which seems crazy to place there when there are other equally good alternatives.