Re: About GPL and proprietary software

On Sun, 2003-08-31 at 07:26, Kaarel wrote:
> I don't feel very confident when it comes to software licenses. But
> there are some cases I would like to make myself clear. What I am
> particulary interested in is when does GPL license become restrictive?
> For example say a company has a proprietary software product that only
> works with MySQL and no other database system. Are the following cases
> legal?
> 1) This company sells his product under proprietary license and leaves
> it up to the client to set up required MySQL server. Or perhaps helps
> the client with seting up MySQL with or without extra fee.
> 2) Clients pay monthly fee to this company for using their proprietary
> software which uses MySQL hosted in the companys server.
> 3) This company sells his product under proprietary license on the CD
> which also includes MySQL as free bonus (with source code).
>
> If these cases are valid, then when does GPL license for MySQL (or any
> other software in that matter) become truly restrictive for a
> proprietary company?

Why are you asking about MySQL (a GPL-licensed product), on a
PostgreSQL (a BSD-licensed product) mailing list????

Be that as it may:
IANAL, but according to my understanding
(1) proprietary s/w that dynamically links to "GPL" shared libraries
has not broken the GPL.
(2) proprietary s/w that *statically* links to "GPL" libraries has
broken the GPL.
(3) proprietary s/w that "speaks" to "GPL" s/w via a pipe, network
link, etc., does not break the GPL.

Presumably, one of the reasons that PostgreSQL is BSD-licensed is
to avoid issues like this.

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Ron Johnson, Jr. ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net
Jefferson, LA USA

4 degrees from Vladimir Putin