Hi!
Thanks Philippe for forwarding this to us:
>>>>> "P" == Philippe Paravicini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
P> mySql.org's position (whomever they are)
P> ***
P> Dear Philippe:
P> mySQL.org is a not for profit organization dedicated to promoting
P> and further enhancing the mySQL database engine. Like all open
P> source projects we welcome community input to help enhance the
P> product.
P> The MySQL AB company is a commercial entity that sells licensed
P> versions of the mySQL database. They can do this because they
P> own the copyright of all the source code they license and do
P> not accept community contribution unless they can obtain the
P> copyright from the contributor. Obviously you can see that
P> this goes against the spirit of Open Source development, hence
P> mySQL.org has been formed.
P> mySQL.org is not involved in any litigation with either NuSphere
P> or MySQL AB. While it is true that NuSphere and MySQL AB are
P> involved in a legal battle over some sort of contract, we here
P> at mySQL.org have chosen not to take sides or speculate on the
P> issue.
P> If you have questions or concerns over the NuSphere/MySQL AB
P> lawsuit (which it appear that you do), please address your
P> questions to either NuSphere or MySQL AB.
P> Regards,
P> Mike Furgal - mySQL.org - Where mySQL is your SQL.
Thanks Philippe for forwarding this.
I find Mike's position a little strange here.
Mike Furgal is a full time employee of NuSphere Inc. As NuSphere has
violated the GPL license, he has no right to use, modify or distribute
the MySQL source code anymore. (This is straight from section 4 of
the GPL license). Mike has the full right to do modification to
Gemini, but he can't touch the MySQL code. That NuSphere did release
the source code for Gemini after we sued them for violating the GPL
license doesn't give them back the right to use MySQL under GPL.
It's NuSphere Inc that formed mysql.org and it's NuSphere that is the
driving force behind mysql.org. To say that mysql.org is not a part
of this dispute is a strange statement.
mysql.org is involved in litigation with MySQL AB as MySQL AB has sued
NuSphere for tradmark infringement, of which mysql.org is a part.
Even under the interim agreement we did with NuSphere, we never
granted NuSphere to use our trademark in this way.
It's true that for changes into the core parts of the MySQL server we
require the submitter to give us a shared copyright to the code, but
this is something also other open source projects requires. For
example FSF also require the author to sign over the copyright of any
contributed code to them.
The reason that we need to get the copyright for the parts that goes
into the core server is that to finance MySQL development we need to
be able to sell embedded MySQL servers to our commercial customers.
There is nothing strange with this and many open source companies does
the same thing.
If NuSphere really would have thought that we are doing the wrong
thing here they would have launced Nusphere.org for this, but instead
they decided to violate our tradmark rights by launcing mysql.org.
When it comes to NuSphere we have never required them to sign over the
Gemini code to MySQL AB, as this is not something that is in the core
MySQL server. It was also NuSphere's who decided that they didn't
want to push the Gemini code into MySQL 3.23, which we had previously
agreed upon.
Mike also conveniently forgets in his email that it's the people
behind MySQL AB that are the creators of the MySQL code and is
driving the development of the server parts of the MySQL code.
You can find more about this issue at:
http://www.mysql.com/news/article-75.html
We are constantly updating the above FAQ with new facts, to clarify
our position in this issue.
Regards,
Monty
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