familiar with their licensing terms. Specifically, MySQL is *not* free for
commercial development. If you use MySQL for a commercial product and don't
purchase a commercial license, then you run the risk of inadvertently
releasing your source code for free.
MySQL is released under GPL, unlike Linux, for example, which is released
under LGPL. Under the LGPL, if you write an application that runs on Linux
you can redistribute that application without releasing the source code.
Under the GPL, however, if you release an application that runs on MySQL,
then you must release the source code of your application.
Here are the relevant quotes from the MySQL licensing page on their web
site:
http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html
Regarding their Open Source license, which is the GPL:
"The Open Source License allows you to use the software at no charge
under the condition that if you use MySQL in an application you
redistribute, the complete source code for your application must be
available and freely redistributable under reasonable conditions."
If you don't want to release the source code of your application, you must
purchase a commercial license:
"The Commercial License, which allows you to provide commercial software
licenses to your customers or distribute MySQL-based applications within
your organization. This is for organizations that do not want to release the
source code for their applications as open source / free software; in other
words they do not want to comply with the GNU General Public License (GPL)."
Note that it's not just the MySQL database that's covered under these
license terms--they also apply to the MySQL JDBC and ODBC drivers. (This is
the reason BlueDragon no longer ships the MySQL JDBC driver).
So if you use MySQL--be careful. If you don't purchase a commercial license,
anyone can demand that you give them your source code under the terms of the
GPL license.
Vince Bonfanti
New Atlanta Communications, LLC
http://www.newatlanta.com
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