Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle [LWN.net]

Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 17, 2009 20:29 UTC (Thu) by vblum (guest, #1151)
In reply to: Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle by hingo
Parent article: Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

I also liked the article and its conclusions, but I still have not understood one fundamental point: What is wrong with GPLv2?

The license will work as a license, going forward, certainly equivalent to or better than other open source type licenses. For example, the Linux kernel works very well under GPLv2, and with a sufficient community out there, does not seem likely to die soon ....

The worst that _could_ happen is that Oracle could buy the entire "developer community" and pay them to shut down the GPLv2 development process. Short of that, the product is out there, GPLv2, and can be used and developed under that license. I fail to see how a change to an Apache style license or any other one would change this. Certainly I fail to see why the license would impact the antitrust aspect of the case.

So any good explanation of that would be helpful. How exactly would a change from GPLv2 to anything else alleviate the fact that Oracle could simply pay everyone under their control to not develop anymore?

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Some thoughts on MySQL and Oracle

Posted Dec 18, 2009 7:53 UTC (Fri) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

The significant difference is that the license used for Linux does not affect the software run on top of Linux (a.k.a user space). So you can run GPLv2, GPLv3, LGPL, BSD, proprietary software on a Linux system. This of course makes sense.

For the GPLv2 version of MySQL this is not possible, and as discussed above this is by design, since the business model was to require proprietary SW makers to pay money for the privilege of using MySQL. (Imagine if glibc and other libraries used on Linux were also GPL all the way.) MySQL does however provide for a FOSS Exception, so that also other open source SW than GPLv2 can use it freely, with one exception...

So if MySQL were controlled by a "hostile" party, proprietary software, and curiously GPLv3 software (which is missing from the list of FOSS exception licenses), could not use MySQL or a fork of it anymore.