Re: Licensing

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:57:06 -0800 Robby Russell <robby(at)planetargon(dot)com> wrote:

> On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 09:48 +0100, Miroslav Å ulc wrote:
> > Lance Obermeyer wrote:
> >
> > >MySQL is a commercial company that wants to sell licenses. Their open source offering licensed under something called the GPL (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php) which is in some ways quite complex. You or your client should consult an attorney to see whether your intended use meets its terms. Based on your response from the MySQL account rep, it sounds like your app would not be in compliance.
> > >
> > >
> > If I understood MySQL licensing correctly, simply said, end user has two
> > choices:
> >
> > 1) when using application that is licensed under GPL, he/she can use
> > MySQL for free
> > 2) when using application under any other license (simplified), he/she
> > must pay for each MySQL installation
> >

> I don't think that this is completely accurate. For instance, PHP is
> licensed under the PHP license, not GPL. So, according to your
> statement, you cannot use any of the PHP Pear libraries (which are
> typically PHP license) without a license from MySQL?

if memory serves, the PHP folks pitched a fit over MySQL licensing
changes, and the fine folks at MySQL AB did some tweaks to
accomodate them.

as far as point 2 goes, MySQL AB only claims you need to buy a
commercial license if you plan to distribute your code under a non
GPL license, for some rather ill defined notion of "distribute".

richard
--
Richard Welty rwelty(at)averillpark(dot)net
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