MariaDB 10.2.2 inherited from MySQL 5.7 a perceived optimization
of ALTER TABLE, which skips the writing of redo log records.
In MDEV-16809 we introduced a parameter that allows the redo log to
be written, so that Mariabackup would not be impacted, but we kept
the MySQL 5.7 behaviour enabled by default (innodb_log_optimize_ddl=ON).

As noted in MDEV-19747 (Deprecate and ignore innodb_log_optimize_ddl,
implemented in MariaDB 10.5.1), omitting the redo log writes can
actually reduce performance, because we will have to wait for the data
pages to be written out. When the redo log file is configured to be
large enough, it actually can be much faster to write the redo log and
avoid the extra page flushing.

When the redo log is omitted (innodb_log_optimize_ddl=ON), also
Mariabackup may have to perform a lot of extra work, to re-copy the
entire data file if it is possible that any log was omitted during
the backup.

Starting with MariaDB 10.5.1, the parameter innodb_log_optimize_ddl
is deprecated and ignored. We hereby deprecate (but will not ignore)
the parameter in earlier versions as well.