MySQL man pages silently relicensed away from GPL (MariaDB blog)

In what might be seen as a harbinger of license changes to come for MySQL, the MariaDB blog is reporting that the man pages for MySQL 5.5.31 have changed licenses. Formerly covered by the GPLv2, the man pages are now under a more restrictive license, the crux of which seems to be: "You may create a printed copy of this documentation solely for your own personal use. Conversion to other formats is allowed as long as the actual content is not altered or edited in any way. You shall not publish or distribute this documentation in any form or on any media, except if you distribute the documentation in a manner similar to how Oracle disseminates it (that is, electronically for download on a Web site with the software) or on a CD-ROM or similar medium, provided however that the documentation is disseminated together with the software on the same medium. Any other use, such as any dissemination of printed copies or use of this documentation, in whole or in part, in another publication, requires the prior written consent from an authorized representative of Oracle."

[Update: A MySQL bug report indicates that a build system problem led to the relicensing, which will presumably be fixed in the next release.]

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