MySQL and SAP - License change

Posted May 29, 2003 15:54 UTC (Thu) by linuxbox (guest, #6928)
Parent article: MySQL and SAP

The number of comments questioning the license change is certainly more than a "handful." It's most of the traffic on the SAPDB general list, over the past 2 days.

And I think unilateral license changes of this type should be viewed with much more critical concern than this summary displays.

While good for MySQL AB, I suspect this change is harmful to most users of the software. The claim that MySQL's growth reflects the soundness of this licensing strategy (from the client/consumer viewpoint) is specious--because most commercial usrs of MySQL probably misunderstand the licensing, are in violation, and would not be using it if they realized they must by MySQL licenses.

Imagine if Linux were free to use "as is," but required commercial licenses from Linus when you wanted to use it in connection with non-GPL'd software. While the FSF might consider Linux more free in that case, in practice, there would be no mainstream use of Linux under those licensing provisions.

The same reasoning applies to GPL licensing of client interfaces for a key infrastructure services like a client/server RDBMS. Even if those licenses are priced affordably today, there is _no_ way to predict the cost of the same licenses in the future. Hence the future value of commercial software linked with MySQL depends on the future behavior and ownership of one company--a company that could be sold, leave business, or change its practices in ways harmful to the users of its software.

I for one think of this as a bad-faith move from the commercial stewards of SAPDB.

MySQL and SAP - License change

Posted May 29, 2003 21:22 UTC (Thu) by komarek (guest, #7295) [Link]

"Imagine if Linux were free to use "as is," but required commercial licenses from Linus when you wanted to use it in connection with non-GPL'd software."

You're mixing up usage restrictions and copyright. GPL is a copyright, and puts no restrictions on usage. Linux (the kernel) is GPL'd. And the new client libraries will also be GPL'd. Your "imagine" scenario is of course interesting to ponder, but bears no real relation to the MySQL/SAP client libs issue -- MySQL is putting the those client libs under the GPL, not the Microsoft EULA.

You may have a point, but you'll have to be more careful if you want to be convincing.

MySQL and SAP - License change

Posted May 30, 2003 1:45 UTC (Fri) by zone (guest, #3633) [Link] (1 responses)

"Imagine if Linux were free to use "as is," but required commercial licenses from Linus when you wanted to use it in connection with non-GPL'd software."

You are confusing the issues of using non-free software and bundling non-free software. You are not required to purchase a MySQL license to use non-free software "in connection" with MySQL; the GPL guarantees your right to do that. If you read the MySQL licensing policy, you'll see that you only need a commercial license when you _directly bundle_ MySQL with your non-GPL application, i.e. producing a non-free/semi-free application. You are free to distribute your non-GPL application for use with MySQL, as long as you don't include the MySQL server or a MySQL driver with it.

"While the FSF might consider Linux more free in that case, in practice, there would be no mainstream use of Linux under those licensing provisions."

Actually, the FSF would consider that _less_ free. It wouldn't really be Free if you could only use the software in conjunction with other free software.

MySQL and SAP - License change

Posted Jun 5, 2003 7:53 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Unfortunatelly you are wrong. You can not link mysql client libraries in your application if it's not GPL-licensed - for example PHP: right now PHP includes it's own old version of libmysql and thus not in violation but if you'll link PHP and last version of libmysql from MySQL 4.1.x you'll be in violation of GPL. I do not think it was intent to make PHP unable to use recent versions of libmysql but that's what we have now!