Would it be possible to install the mariadb client via conda directly, to potentially sidestep this problem?

Clearly an option to install the client ourselves!

Will we then always use our own client?
Is there any drawback with that? Likely not!

This needs to be researched to understand if it is possible, theoretically it should be, but my sight is blurry currently when I try to image what happens to non-debian platforms or Windows. But this is for sure something that can be useful in many ways.

As far as I can saw from researching this, it is very difficult to manage non-python dependencies (APT-like) from pip and conda, those were simply not designed to do this. So it is very hard for me to say if it's even possible to install mariadb client/server via conda or pip.

But there is another interesting idea that comes to my mind. Using a docker container programatically to deliver a ready-to-use-everywhere MariaDB installation, as cvicentiu suggested in some other MDBF task, might be a really good solution to achieve what you two are proposing here.

I'm closing the issue for now as the root feature proposed in this task is done. Please feel free to share your ideas here or in a new Jira entry requesting such a feature.