Re: postgresql or mysql or oracle? - Mailing list pgsql-novice

Clinging to sanity, tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us (Tom Lane) mumbled into her beard:
> Bruno Wolff III <bruno@wolff.to> writes:
>>   Randolf Richardson <rr@8x.ca> wrote:
>>> MySQL:  Not free for commercial use
>>> [If I'm mistaken about any of this, corrections are welcome.]
>
>> MySQL is GPL code and hence is free for commercial use if you abide
>> by the restrictions of the GPL. If you want to not have to abide by
>> these restrictions then you have to make a deal with MySQL to get
>> the code under an alternate license.
>
> I seem to recall some flaps about MySQL AB using an overly tight
> interpretation of the GPL and therefore telling people they needed
> commercial licenses in cases where independent observers thought
> not.  Too lazy to look up the details at the moment, though.

One of the conspicuous things that has _changed_ is the license on the
libraries used to access the DB server.

It used to be that the libraries were licensed under the Library GPL
(LGPL), in which case you could "safely" link them into otherwise
proprietary applications without running afoul of the license.  (There
are some conditions on how you do that, but they are not generally
troublesome to follow.)

With version 4 of the product, the libraries were re-licensed under
the GPL, which has rather more troublesome implications for anything
you might link to it.

When SAPDB was taken over, the same change was made for its client
access libraries, causing a fair bit of consternation to "clients" who
had grown accustomed to SAP's license choice.

I think what people are reading isn't so much an intended reading of
the GPL as a reading of the company's _intent_.

When the SAPDB license change came up, the company did elaborate on
intent:

     "Our guiding principle is to have all our source code open, and
     to offer it free of payment (i.e. gratis) to those who commit to
     doing the same. We have concluded that the GPL licence best
     fulfills this principle, and that's why we use the GPL.

     Therefore the answer to (a questioner's) question is: "Your PHP
     app that works with MySQL, if distributed, will either have
     to be GPL (or another OSI-approved and MySQL-approved open
     source licence) or you will need a commercial licence of
     MySQL."

     Sometimes people say "But I cannot open source my application!"
     and they may have valid reasons for this. Our response is then:
     "If you have a valid reason not to be open source, wouldn't that
     same reasoning apply to us?."

     This goes to the core of MySQL AB's business idea of Quid pro Quo
     - if you are open source, we are open source - if you are closed
     source, we are commercial."

I think it's plenty good enough to understand their intent, and they
have stated their intent with admirable clarity.  (We may not
necessarily _like_ the intent, but that doesn't mean they weren't
clear about it.)

Users that fight their intent will make themselves into adversaries,
irrespective of what may be their methodology for interpreting
licenses.
--
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"Anyone who says you can have a lot of widely dispersed people hack
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managed a software project."  Andrew Tanenbaum, 1992.