Hi! Indeed the binary sizes of MariaDB are quite large. The way they are built is the same as at upstream, there is no artificial bloating going on in Debian.
Any ideas on how to reduce the binary size are welcome! The packaging source code is at https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-server and instructions on how to contribute in https://salsa.debian.org/mariadb-team/mariadb-server/-/wikis/Contributing-to-MariaDB-packaging-in-Debian if you want to try playing around with the build yourself.
