oaky wrote: [...] > A protocol exchange would qualify (in Moglen's world) as an example > of "exchanging complex internal data structures", like a GPL'd > daemon talking with a proprietary client app or vice-a-versa.
Exactly. http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.022702/220582261 ----- BW2261 FEB 27,2002 7:10 PACIFIC 10:10 EASTERN ( BW)(MA-NUSPHERE) Preliminary Hearing Between NuSphere and MySQL AB Begins Today; NuSphere Responds to False Claims by the Free Software Foundation Business/Technology Editors BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2002--The Free Software Foundation (FSF) issued a press release yesterday inaccurately stating that NuSphere Corporation, an independent operating company of Progress Software Corporation, "lost the right to distribute MySQL software due to a violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL)." According to Lorne Cooper, president of NuSphere Corporation, these statements are inaccurate and inappropriate, as the case has yet to be presented in court. "The Free Software Foundation had no basis on which to issue this statement," said Cooper. "The dispute between NuSphere and MySQL AB originated from a trademark dispute. The initial court hearing takes place today in Boston Federal Court. We believe actions such as this press release by the FSF violate basic ethics regarding due process of law and can only harm the open source community by alarming commercial users of open software." The FSF contends that NuSphere violated the GPL by simply linking proprietary software to the MySQL system using a public API. MySQL AB is interpreting the GPL so broadly that any commercial software that comes into contact with free software must also become free, according to Cooper. By that standard, a commercial email program would violate the GPL if it downloaded mail from a GPL-compliant mail server, he says. NuSphere regards this as an extreme interpretation of the GPL and believes that MySQL AB's injunction against NuSphere is an inappropriate case by which to test the GPL in a court of law. The legal dispute between NuSphere Corporation and MySQL AB, which is a VC-backed organization that also develops, supports and markets MySQL, is about trademark rights that NuSphere purchased. MySQL AB raised GPL issues in its counter-suit. "Businesses may, in good faith, have disagreements over interpretation of contracts and in this case all that we seek is to have MySQL AB honor its contracts," said Cooper. "MySQL AB, however, decided to broaden our contractual dispute into a legal test case for the GPL. We disagree with that decision because there is no infringement of the GPL, and because this is counter to how the open source community operates." Visit the NuSphere website (www.nusphere.com) to view a letter that Cooper wrote to customers and the open source community and a PDF file of the original contract signed with MySQL AB in June 2000. For more information or comment from Lorne Cooper, please contact Sarah Johnson or Laura Ackerman at 781-684-0770 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note, Cooper will not be available during the hearing, which runs from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST. More information on NuSphere also is available at www.nusphere.com. --30--kc/bos* CONTACT: Sarah Johnson or Laura Ackerman Schwartz Communications, Inc. 781-684-0770 [EMAIL PROTECTED] KEYWORD: MASSACHUSETTS INDUSTRY KEYWORD: COMPUTERS/ELECTRONICS SOFTWARE SOURCE: NuSphere ----- See also http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/saris/pdf/progress%20software.pdf and http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/07/12/2142237 (NuSphere: MySQL.org needed because MySQL AB won't accept code) ----- Johnston says at the heart of the issue is a pending lawsuit in which the two companies are suing each other over their changing relationship and trademark issues. Neither side would talk in great detail about the pending lawsuits, but Johnston says NuSphere hasn't been allowed to participate in the existing community at MySQL AB's MySQL.com. "We tried to submit changes [to the MySQL code] under the GPL to that site, and they were refused on a commercial basis, not on a technical basis," Johnston adds. "The code works fine, and we ship it as part of our GPL version of MySQL ... but they are not available from MySQL.com, because they won't accept anything they don't own the copyright to." [...] MySQL AB's Mickos, on the phone from Finland, says the MySQL code, while being Open Source, has always been created almost entirely by project founders Michael "Monty" Widenius and David Axmark. "It has never been a 'bazaar' product like in The Cathedral and the Bazaar," Mickos says. "It's not a product everybody has contributed to, and that never was the intention. "Monty has never accepted code contributions from other people," Mickos adds. "If he has gotten something [from someone else], they have been donations to him, and he rewrites them, but that's minor. There never has been a situation where anybody could freely contribute code." [...] Johnston says the two companies worked together on a press release about Gemini being part of version 4 of MySQL, but NuSphere is still waiting for that code to be released. "We checked the Gemini code into that source tree, but that source tree hasn't left the gate yet," he says. "Now they've refused our ability to contribute Gemini at all. So that's an interesting claim." ----- regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ Gnu-misc-discuss mailing list Gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss