An attempt to summarize this thread, so that we can stop going round in circles.

Posted Jan 5, 2010 13:42 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
In reply to: An attempt to summarize this thread, so that we can stop going round in circles. by farnz
Parent article: The ongoing MySQL campaign

The problem is really that a GPLed MySQL with the copyrights held by Oracle is bad for Monty, who wants to make a living selling proprietary versions of the MySQL server to paying customers. To do that, obviously he would much rather have a GPLed MySQL with the copyrights held by his own company (like before he sold MySQL AB to Sun) that he can dual-license, or, failing that, a MySQL under a BSD-like license that doesn't force him to publish source code.

The GPL version of MySQL is used by a very large number of people and is unlikely to go away anytime soon, no matter what Sun, Oracle, or the EU do. As far as proprietary users of MySQL are concerned, people who are not interested in hacking on the MySQL server itself can write all the proprietary MySQL-using software they care for by using a non-GPL version of the MySQL client library -- either one they come up with themselves or else one that may be available from Sun under the LGPL under the auspices of OpenOffice.org, as alluded to elsewhere in this discussion.