----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Matthews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Pae Choi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Tonu Samuel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Darney Lampert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 5:30 AM Subject: Re: LEGAL information about MySQL.
> If you are not sure exactly how the GPL works, and you have read > the license terms that I've referenced above, and still want to > distribute your software that uses and/or links to software licensed > under the GPL, I suggest you first seek a lawyer's opinion, and have > it explained to you in non-legalese. Are you suggesting that every program that uses MySQL has to be GPL?? I doubt that. If so, you are effectively saying, for instance, that no program written in Perl could ever be non-GPL (as all Perl scripts use/link to GPL Perl). And this is, of course, not the case. There are many commercial products out there, like Perl debuggers, for example, that are definitely NOT licenced GPL, yet still use/link to Perl. I read the MySQL Licensing Policy, and, to me, it said: "If your application is NOT licensed under GPL or compatible OSI license approved by MySQL AB and you intend to distribute MySQL software (be that internally or externally), you must first obtain a commercial license to the MySQL software in question." The licence talks about DISTRIBUTING the MySQL software itself; or, as it says, "More specifically: a) If you include the MySQL server in your non Open Source application, you need a commercial licence for the MySQL server, b) If you include one of the MySQL drivers in your non Open Source application (so that your application can run with MySQL), you need a commercial licence for the driver(s) in question. The MySQL drivers currently include an ODBC driver, a JDBC driver and the C language library." Except, of course, that most people do NOT distribute MySQL software, or drivers with their own programs. Besides, if I write a program in Perl, which uses MySQL, it is still Perl that distributes drivers and such. My OWN program does no such thing. My program just says: "Use DBI;". - Mark --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
