Comment by evanelias

Sure, it's a common point of confusion specifically because a few major Linux distros did that. But SREs / DBAs / DBREs will generally take a much more rigorous approach to database version upgrades. Companies just don't tend to upgrade their important databases in that fashion, and ditto for operating systems if they self-host.

And then there's all the users of managed cloud database offerings (RDS, Cloud SQL, etc) who definitely don't accidentally switch database vendors in that manner. Google Cloud doesn't even offer managed MariaDB, and Azure is retiring their managed MariaDB product.

Also keep in mind MariaDB hasn't been fully drop-in compatible with MySQL for over a decade. They've increasingly diverged in features and minor syntax differences over time.

Just to be clear, I'm not bashing MariaDB, I quite like it as a database. But there's a lot of misconceptions about the relative usage levels of MariaDB vs MySQL among FOSS circles.