Re: People who develop with MySQL and/or other GPL based code
Re: People who develop with MySQL and/or other GPL based code
- Subject: Re: People who develop with MySQL and/or other GPL based code
- From: Randall Wood <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 06:47:22 -0500
On Dec 22, 2003, at 8:32 PM, Dave Garaffa wrote:
>
I've got a question ... all be it not exactly (or at all) a
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programming related one but more of a legal one...
>
>
MySQL is GPL correct?
MySQL has multiple licenses. It may be freely redistributed only under
the GPL or it may be commericilly redistributed but at a cost. See
http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html for details.
>
My understanding is that any/all programs that uses GPL code (even the
>
client lib as wrapped by the cocoa sourceforge project) are REQUIRED
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to make their source code (ALL OF IT) available as well... unless you
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make other arrangements with the developers of said GPL code. (pay for
>
individual licenses for each distribution of the code you)
The GPL only requires that you make your source code available to
customers of your software who request it. You do not need to post your
source alongside your compiled application.
>
If so then anyone selling cocoa based software (that uses either the
>
cocoa-sourceforge mysql stuff or even rolling their own wrapper and
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just including the mysql lib) and not also providing the source are
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'at risk' of some potential legal trouble at some point in time (when
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someone at MySQL decides to do something about it)...
>
>
Is *my* understanding of this correct?
Kind of.
>
I hope someone can help me out with this stuff... I'd like to start a
>
project but I see no point in getting seriously involved with using
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MySQL as a starting point only to find out I'm not going to be able to
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(maybe someday) sell it or make is shareware even without being forced
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to give out the source code for the entire application. I see quite a
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few Commercial / Shareware apps on VersionTracker that
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use/support/manage MySQL data and I know they aren't giving away the
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source to their apps... How are they doing it? Are they just 'running
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the risk' of not being noticed? Many of the said apps also provide
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demo-downloads (limited in some way) and from my understanding of the
>
GPL even that isn't allowed without making the source available (or
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buying licenses for each copy distributed)...
Again, the source code MUST be available to paying customers, but does
not need to be available to others. And it does not need to be made
available over the 'net. You could distribute it on CDs...but I think
it must be in usable form (ie not printed on paper and bound, but in
digital media).
>
Thanks for getting this far in my run-on-question! ;)
>
>
If anyone has insight they can provide and/or a place to go to get
>
more info about this I'd be grateful.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html
I hope this helps.
--
Randall Wood
email@hidden
"The rules are simple: The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes.
All the rest is just philosophy."
[demime 0.98b removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of PGP.sig]
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