Core 2 comes with an outdated mysql??
 

I installed fedora core 2 with apache, php, and mysql. The version of apache seems pretty recent- 2.48 I think. But the mysql version is something like 3.23. ????. mysql 4.x has been out in stable release for over 6 months. Core 2 was released in mid may. Why does it come with such an old mysql?

Is there a reason for that or is it just a big mistake?

Checked for update using synaptic and it states the latest version is 3.23... as you rightly state. According to mysql.com version 4 has been released and is the recommended stable version now, in fact 4.1 is in testing now. Unsure why this is, as you say it may be an error.

licensing issues with MySQL
 

Redhat has licensing (and possibly other) issues with MySQL. MySQL is attempting to resolve the issues, according to this article at uk.builder.com, but a spokesperson for the Fedora project says that the FOSS exception is insufficient.

"The change in licensing from LGPL to GPL now prohibits inclusion of MySQL code in any software that is not explicitly licensed under the GPL, such as PHP." according to Fedora Project volunteer Jack Aboutboul in an article at internetnews.com. Jack hopes the issues will be resolved by the time Fedora Core 3 is released.

But why worry about license nonsense? Just go to MySQL and download their perfectly nice RPMs or SRPMs.

...hmm... I just saw a post that Fedora Core 3 Test 1 was released today, and still no MySQL 4.x. Bleh.

finally, MySQL 4.1 in Fedora Core (devel only)
 

Finally, the latest production version of MySQL is included in Fedora Core. Note that the recently released Fedora Core 3 does *not* contain MySQL, but the development version does. I found indication of this on distrowatch, and confirmed it by checking out the acual list of RPMs included in Fedora Core devel.