Ok, so I don't have any proof they plan to axe it, but why are ex-MySQL founders and core developers flocking to OurDelta, Drizzle and MariaDB then? From what I read, MariaDB is simply a replica of MySQL with a different default storage engine and are working on a transactional MyISAM engine to get around InnoDB rights.
Just makes me worry that my beloved database engine with wither and die.