Re: Are we losing momentum?

On Monday 14 April 2003 09:30 pm, Dann Corbit wrote:
>
> And about MySQL:
> It's also commercial. You are not supposed to use it except for a
> single machine for personal use unless you are a non-profit organization
> or unless absolutely everything you do is GPL[1]. Hence, you have to
> license it to deploy applications. In order to have transactions, you
> have to use another commercial product that they bolt into MySQL --
> Sleepycat software's database. Now you have two license systems to
> worry about.
>
> Compared to PostgreSQL, both of these tools cost an arm and a leg.
> SQL*Server is closed. You have to rely on MS to fix any problems that
> crop up. MySQL has a very restrictive license [for those who might
> happen to bother to read such things] for both modifications to the code
> and also redistribution of applications.
>
> [1] I realize that people cheat on this all the time. In theory, they
> could all go to jail for it. It is certainly not a risk I would be
> willing to take. I have also bumped into people who had no idea that
> commercial use requires a commercial license for MySQL. There are
> probably lots of people in that boat too.

Can you point me to the relevent portions of the license?

I tried to go through the license, but it basically seemed free (as in GPL) to
me. My impression is that you can't statically link Sleepycat's Berkeley DB
with software unless it is released under a free license (reasonable, kind of
like the GPL, if you consider that reasonable). They sell a commercial
version, which allows you to statically link it. I sort of get the same idea
from MySQL: as long as you aren't trying to distribute it, you're fine (even
in-house changes).

Also, aren't mysql and sleepycat in the standard distribution of Debian? I
would think the debian developers would be interested to know if the likes of
sleepycat and mysql don't abide by the DFSG. That's actually one of the
things I've always liked about Debian: read one set of guidelines, and trust
the developers to ensure compliance across the entire OS (as long as you stay
our of non-free). At least, so I thought...

Regards,
Jeff Davis