"cIsTemplate" From Integer to Character - Why?

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The "Pages" table in the DB has a "cIsTemplate" column which is apparently used as a flag to indicate if the page is a default page. The schema in db.xml has it as an integer, while the schema in version_451.xml has it as a character.

I'm just wondering why this boolean was changed from integer to character as of version 5.4.1.

Thanks for any insight you can provide,

-Steve

Shotster