why php without mysql support?

[Mike Wright <ebwximaurm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello list users,

This question is probably most accurately directed to the developers.

On a FC4 box I fired up apache and fed it a php script:

                  <?php phpinfo(); ?>

which displays, among many other settings, the configure command used 
for the current build of php.  To my great surprise it was compiled 
"--without-sqlite" and "--without-mysql".

Since many of us consider ourselves to be LAMP (linux apache mysql php) 
developers this requires us to rebuild php right out of the starting block.

Would someone be so kind as to explain why mysql and sqlite are 
specifically *excluded* from the included php build?

Thanks for any insight on this subject,
Mike Wright :m)