GPL infrastructure software

Posted Jan 4, 2010 8:04 UTC (Mon) by hingo (guest, #14792)
In reply to: GPL infrastructure software by man_ls
Parent article: The ongoing MySQL campaign

No. glibc, just like most GNU libraries are LGPL (yes, this is the big difference). JBoss is LGPL. Linux has the user space exception (without which glibc couldn't be LGPL).

Samba is almost a good example of what you are trying to say. The difference is that applications using Samba over the CIFS protocol are not affected by the GPL. In contrast any application using MySQL, will use a MySQL client library, which are GPL licensed (plus FOSS exception to allow for some other FOSS licenses, but not GPLv3).

So the point is that unlike all other software we have in our infrastructure, MySQL (and Qt), to enable a specific business model, have been licensed in a way that gives the owner as much control as possible. The motives in that choice are just different from the typical FSF/GNU library or Samba or other community developed software.

And just because it was mentioned elsewhere: GCC is not infrastructure software in this sense, meaning that other software don't run on top of it. (Similarly Emacs is not infrastructure software, even if it is used to create new software.)

You got Ghostscript right! It is of course also a dual licensed product. This is typically the reason to choose GPL for infrastructure software. (Then we also have readline, which is an exception in the GNU stack of otherwise LGPL licenses.) I don't know that ghostscript has ever been forked either, which was Monty's original statement.

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GPL infrastructure software

Posted Jan 4, 2010 9:00 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (2 responses)

If you are a third-party software vendor whose product supports MySQL, chances are that you don't actually need to futz around inside the MySQL database server in order to make your product work with it. Instead, you talk to the server over the network (via TCP or a Unix-domain socket).

Hence all that keeps you from releasing your own software under a proprietary license is the fact that the MySQL client library, which is the bit that does get linked into your product, is licensed under the GPL and would force you to release your code under the GPL (or one of a bunch of other free-software licenses). Come up with your own compatible clean-room replacement to libmysqlclient, and you're home free -- you can still distribute (and support) the unmodified MySQL server under the GPL, and use whatever license you fancy for your own code.

I haven't looked at libmysqlclient recently, but whatever it does is unlikely to be rocket science. The GPL version of MySQL will be available essentially forever, no matter what Oracle may do to the »enterprise« version, so whoever is using the MySQL database server as a client in a »proprietary« fashion today is basically a small push away from being able to continue using it for as long as they like. I don't see a big problem here.

I agree with various others in this thread in that it appears to me that Monty dreams of the EU giving MySQL back to him (preferably for free), after he sold it to Sun to $$$ some time ago. Monty's main problem is that, unlike most other »proprietary« users of MySQL, his business is about futzing around inside the MySQL server (where most others just talk to it via the client library), so if Oracle doesn't let go of the code and he is restricted to using the GPL version of MySQL, he will have to make his improvements to the server available under the GPL, too. Which of course is a bit of a downer. Thus, the big smoke screen.

GPL infrastructure software

Posted Jan 4, 2010 9:30 UTC (Mon) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (1 responses)

No need to come up with your own replacement, Sun already distributes libmysqlclient under the LGPLv3 as part of OpenOffice:
http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/mysql_c...

GPL infrastructure software

Posted Jan 7, 2010 16:54 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

Futzing around I came to the MySQL Connector for OOo page, which states that this is LGPLv3 but runs on top of MySQL Connector/C++, which is GPLv2 with FLOSS exception. AFAIU, this still means that you can't use this from non-FLOSS software.