Re: Response from MySql AB (Re: Humor me: Postgresql vs.

On Thu, 9 Oct 2003, Kaarel wrote:

>
> >http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing-examples.html.
> >
> >
> Well this is very interesting indeed. Beat that:
>
> "You need a license if you sell a product designed specifically for use
> with MySQL or that requires the MySQL server to function at all. This is
> true whether or not you provide MySQL for your client as part of your
> product distribution."
>
> So whatever compiled program or script you sell, if it works only with
> MySQL (say you want to sell a shell script that checks if a row has been
> added to a MySQL table), you need a license. Then a question arises
> though, when I make my script to work with MySQL AND PostgreSQL too,
> does this make the above statement not valid in my case?

Keep in mind, this is MySQL AB interpreting the GPL for you. While they
can say all they want that you have to do this or that, the fact is, the
only document that says what you REALLY have to do is the GPL.

Fact: If you write your application to work with ODBC -> MySQL
connectivity, you can write a closed source app and sell it for money and
give your customer a copy of MySQL on debian or what not and you will be
in full compliance with the GPL as long as you were smart enough to use a
LGPL or freer ODBC driver within your application, like iodbc
(www.iodbc.org) which is LGPLd.

MySQL is using FUD about the GPL to push commercial licenses. I
consider this unethical in the extreme. If I were a MySQL user I would
honestly consider spending some time to create my own LGPL'd connection
libs for 4.x to be rid of the licensing issues. If they were a pure GPL
company I would at least have some respect for them using GPL on their
connect libs, i.e. sink or swim on the GPL, but the fact is they are using
the fear and uncertainty about where the GPL applies to their customer's
commercial code to sell licenses. Their rhetoric on the web site has been
cleaned up and toned down a bit, but it still has a whole "if you're not
sure, better buy a commercial license" feel to it.