On Wed, 2004-02-11 at 03:06, scott.marlowe wrote:
>
> simple. They GPL'd their connection libs. So, if you write code that has
> their connection libs in it, it's gotta be GPL'd.
>
> Now, if you don't mind using the ODBC connector, you're scott free. but
> you WILL be bound by the GPL, and the GPL (not MySQL's interpretation,
> just the GPL in general) being applied to connect libs seriously limits
> your ability to distribute code, since you'd have to GPL your own code if
> you distributed it outside your own private organization.
>
I am not sure I agree. There are plenty of ways of circumventing this
issue with the connecting libraries. For example, if I really wanted to
(and it would be quite feasible for me to do so) I could write a SOAP
server, CORBA component, or just a simple UNIX socket server which I
could use to communicate with a GPL'd program. This new "server" would
connect using client libraries licensed under the LGPL and released to
the world. I don't think MySQL would be happy, but I don't really think
that they could do much. I might even call it OurSQL to piss them off
;-).
Of course, I don't do this because I prefer PostgreSQL anyway.
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers