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Another counterexample?

Another counterexample?

Posted Jun 24, 2008 5:34 UTC (Tue) by frazier (guest, #3060)
In reply to: Another counterexample? by lrosen
Parent article: A position statement on closed-source kernel modules

Both MySQL (now part of Sun) and QT (unless Nokia has changed this) can be proprietary
licensed from their respective companies:

http://trolltech.com/products/qt/orderform
http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/

How this is possible is that, unlike the Linux kernel which has a lots of copyright holders,
or one of many free software projects that has the copyright assigned to the FSF, the
copyright is owned and controlled by a single commercial entity. This allows them to offer two
(or more) sets of terms that run parallel. In the case of QT and MySQL, this allows them to
offer non-GPL compliant licenses for a fee.



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