As my company and I understand it, if you intend on distributing mySQL on this appliance and the appliance is a sealed box with your own proprietary code (like PHP or C or Java or whatever) that interfaces to the STOCK/Untouched RDBMS, you NEED a mySQL Commercial License.
This license is a ridiculous $600 per unit which makes it completely unrealistic for any large scale deployment!!! I mean, I don't mind paying someone for their work, but I was thinking more like $50 per unit, not > 10 times that. If someone from mySQL can clarify that would be great, but this is how I read the license and that's why we've stuck to v4.0.18 which was GPL. http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/opensource-license.html "Our software is 100% GPL (General Public License); if yours is 100% GPL compliant, then you have no obligation to pay us for the licenses. " "Free use for those who never copy, modify or distribute. As long as you never distribute the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL license or not." "If you are a private individual you are free to use MySQL software for your personal applications as long as you do not distribute them. If you distribute them, you must make a decision between the Commercial License and the GPL." http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/commercial-license.html "Building a hardware system that includes MySQL and selling that hardware system to customers for installation at their own locations." "If you include the MySQL server with an application that is not licensed under the GPL or GPL-compatible license, you need a commercial license for the MySQL server." > -----Original Message----- > From: Pat Ballard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 4:03 PM > To: mysql@lists.mysql.com > Subject: license question > > Suppose i distribute MySQL-4.1 with an appliance, > which is a sealed x86 machine running a Linux > distribution made by another entity (ok, it's Red > Hat). I don't write any code that's directly linked to > MySQL, I'm only using the existing php-mysql, etc., > packages already provided by the distribution, plus > some third-party apps that are under GPL and link to > MySQL (applications that access MySQL, not written by > me, but are Open Source GPL projects off SourceForge > and other places - i just bundle them with the > appliance). > Any code that I write personally is PHP and sits on > top of the php-mysql module provided by Red Hat. > > The end-user has no direct visibility to the database, > in fact, the end-user might never know it's MySQL - > all that is visible is the PHP interface, via Apache. > > In this case, what's the license? Is MySQL still free > (under GPL)? > > -- > Pat Ballard -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
