MySQL: Can the table comment length be increased?

Question

I read the MySQL comment length questions on StackOverflow here:

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/391323/table-comment-length-in-mysql
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2473934/how-to-increase-mysql-table-comments-length

The first link suggests that it can be done and the second suggests it cannot.

I don't know why there is this limitation as the comments are very useful. Imagine if there was a limit of 60 characters for your programs.

I wrote about this on my site and have some snapshots to the phpMyAdmin and Dbforge MySQL IDEs: http://mysql.tutorialref.com/mysql-table-comment-length-limit.html

Is there a way to change this in phpMyAdmin or perhaps even on the CLI?

There is a bug commit report from MySQL on this particular problem (follow the first StackOverflow link). It seems to state that the length problem is fixed.

I have MySQL 5.1.42.

Thank you, Victor