This is yet another reason to favor PostgreSQL over MySQL. PostgreSQL is distributed with a BSD license. You could, if you wish, sell PostgreSQL, without paying anyone a cent. You could modify it and sell it, too (some folks do), without giving away your modifications.
I agree. A while back I decided that I would do my best to steer future projects away from MySQL and to another DBMS, even in cases where the client might be willing to pay the commercial fees.
Something about the GPL movement really rubs me the wrong way. I can understand restrictions to keep a library open and to insure that any modifications to the library also become open and shared. I can even understand requiring a commecial license where said open library is used in a commercial product.
But to purposely try to legally infect every code base touched by the library in a vain attempt to push a world view makes me want to slap someone. Taking it to the next level that mere communications between a client and a server should "infect" the client via the interface library, the subtle way that MySQL does, is just wrong. "Viral" is too kind a word for GPL. Computer viruses are less threatening than tricky contracts and lawyers.
Maybe we'll get lucky and a widely used military system will be found to use GPL code, at which point the world's governments will pass legislation to make GPL illegal and unenforceable. That's how low my opinion is of it.
Daniel L. Taylor Taylor Design Computer Consulting & Software Development [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.taylor-design.com _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives of this list here: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
