Re: About GPL and proprietary software

The world rejoiced as meskes(at)postgresql(dot)org (Michael Meskes) wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 02:26:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
>> IANAL, but according to my understanding
>> (1) proprietary s/w that dynamically links to "GPL" shared libraries
>> has not broken the GPL.
>
> Sure? My understanding is that it does break GPL. That's why there's an
> LGPL.
>
> But since MySQL is double licensed and GPl is just one of the two it
> gets even more complicated.

No, actually, it's pretty simple.

There is (as likely as not) NO issue with the server.

The issue is that the CLIENT software is unavailable in other than GPL
and other "private license-for-money" forms.

In order for you to use MySQL, you have to link GPLed libraries in
with your code. There are no LGPLed libraries; that would break MySQL
AB's business model.

There is considerable unhappiness surrounding this vis-a-vis SAP-DB;
SAP AG had had the server software GPL-licensed, and the client
software licensed under LGPL. Along with renaming it "MaxDB," MySQL
AB is apparently eliminating LGPL-licensed libraries, which is causing
some consternation in the user community. Which will probably point
some system integrators over to use either Firebird or PostgreSQL...
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