Re: Licensing

On Sat, 05 Mar 2005 07:57:06 -0800 Robby Russell <robby@planetargon.com> wr=
ote:

> On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 09:48 +0100, Miroslav =C5=A0ulc wrote:
> > Lance Obermeyer wrote:
> >=20
> > >MySQL is a commercial company that wants to sell licenses.  Their open=
 source offering licensed under something called the GPL (http://www.openso=
urce.org/licenses/gpl-license.php), which is in some ways quite complex.  Y=
ou 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.
> > >=20=20
> > >
> > If I understood MySQL licensing correctly, simply said, end user has two
> > choices:
> >=20
> > 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
> >=20

> 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
--=20
Richard Welty                                         rwelty@averillpark.net
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
    Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security
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