Re: About GPL and proprietary software

On Tue, 2003-09-23 at 17:49, Christopher Browne wrote:
> Oops! scott(dot)marlowe(at)ihs(dot)com ("scott.marlowe") was seen spray-painting on a wall:
> > On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Marten G Mickos wrote:
> >> Scott et co.,
> >>
> >> Thanks for your comment. Here is my response.
> >>
> >> First of all, let's remember that neither I nor MySQL AB (nor any of
> >> us) is an official authority for interpreting the GPL. Legally,
> >> affirmative answers can only be given by a competent court. The FSF
> >> is a natural authority on the GPL and whenever we are in doubt, we
> >> turn to them for advice. But not being the authority on the topic
> >> does not reduce our eagerness to discuss this topic!
> >>
> >> Robert Treat already pointed out two main points:
> >> - the GPL kicks in when you DISTRIBUTE
> >> - the only ones truly suffering from MySQL's licensing policy are the
> >> ones who try to exploit open source for their own benefit without
> >> giving anything back to the community
> >
> > This is generally true, but it also created an issue where PHP, an open
> > source project, can no longer distribute PHP with mysql connect libraries
> > freely due to what I like to think of as an "impedence mismatch" of their
> > licenses. I.e. more free licenses like BSD or PHP are not always
> > compatible.
>
> It would be most interesting if the makers of other GPLed software
> such as Linux were to apply the same rule themselves.
>
> That way, for MySQL to be distributed with Linux, MySQL AB might be
> required to pay $450/box to Linus for licenses. Wouldn't _that_ be
> ironic?

except that (gnu)linux is gpl'd, so they both fall under the
non-commercial license.

but if m$ decided to make mysql an integral part of their OS they would
have to pay up.

Robert Treat
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