This thread brought to mind something in Perl's Artistic License. It
also reminded me that the arguments against the GPL are all red herrings.
Anyway --
> Seems pretty straightforward to me:
>
> "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."
http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html
Yeah, that does sound confusing.
However, applying internal/external to the verb distribute would almost
seem to be an attempt to extend the GPL. The GPL does not talk about
internal distributions, nor does it distinguish between commercial and
non-commercial uses. While MySQL does emphasize the benefit to the
customer in buying licenses and support, they aren't trying to weasel
around the GPL.
Deployment is specifically described by the FSF as being a seperate
issue from distribution, and is not restricted under the GPL unless a
particular deployment requires distribution.
(Do you have to install GPLed software X on all the workstations for
your app to run? That sort of deployment would be a distribution, even
if it were internal only. However, if the deployment does not involve
modifying or incorporating said GPLed software X, the GPL would place no
restrictions on it. And if deployment only requires said GPLed software
X to run on the server, and all access is via some other means, then
there has been no distribution in the deployment.)
IIRC, the Artistic License talks about linking as a determinant of
whether one program incorporates another or not. I seem to recall the
FSF trying to talk about linking in some of their previous licenses or
FAQs, but the present license and FAQ do not seem to do so explicitly.
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation
MySQL AB seems to be waving their corporate hands at the issue in item
3B on the page you referenced. (If you talk to un-altered MySQL only
through a third-party, non-GPLed, driver, your software should be clear
of GPL requirements.)
And then we get into the fuzziness of interpreters. Perl, being under
the Artistic License, can link to the driver without License conflicts,
even when distributed. Source code is considered through the Artistic
License to be input to Perl, rather than some sort of means of
incorporating Perl's library. So, if your program is entirely in Perl
and only talks to MySQL through any driver, that also clears you of the
GPL requirements.
The Apache license does not appear, at first glance, to provide the same
sort of buffer, if that's relevant. I think it isn't. Avoiding the
payment of money is not the point.
Even if you're using the stripped-down "free-means-free-or-else!"
license that openBSD advocates, you really should know what you're using
where and under what terms. If you don't, you don't really know where to
turn when things fail. Free software should not be used as an excuse to
abdicate responsibility. It's exactly the opposite, and if you understand
that, you understand the GPL.
--
Joel Rees <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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