On Oct 29, 2006, at 10:19 AM, MB Software Solutions wrote:
This comes back to the "free as in choice, not as in beer" and "how does open source make money?" discussions. Perhaps MySQL saw how widely used it was and thought "if we just charge $595 USD per year per server, we can make a lot of money."
I don't think that that's how they came up with their dual-license. One end of the spectrum is the "all software must be free" POV, which is largely embodied in the GPL. MySQL is available under a GPL license that allows you to use and distribute as many copies as you like without paying anything. The only requirement is that your software be at least as free as theirs; IOW, you must release under a license with no more restrictions than GPL.
The commercial license is for those projects who want to distribute MySQL with their software, but do not want to make their software open. If everyone would start distributing GPL software, there would be no need for the commercial license.
-- Ed Leafe -- http://leafe.com -- http://dabodev.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: ProFox@leafe.com Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
