scrawford@pinpointresearch.com (Steve Crawford) writes:
> The same page in its description of things interpreted to be
> commercial distribution of MySQL includes this gem:
>
> "Selling software that requires customers to install MySQL themselves
> on their own machines."
>
> If this licensing interpretation applied to Linux (imagining for the
> moment that a commercial licence for Linux were to exist) any
> organization wishing to use the Linux version of Oracle or
> OpenOffice or even PostgreSQL even for strictly internal use would
> have to purchase a commercial Linux license.
I find it disingenous that, in view of this, there is the attempt to
associate MySQL(tm) with 'open source software' like Linux, Perl, and
Apache (those being the other 'members' of "LAMP.")
If Linux, or Apache, or Perl, or any number of the other pieces of
free software that helped to popularize the use of free systems "that
resemble Unix" had had the encumbrances that MySQL AB claims for their
product, they would _never_ have gotten popular the way they have.
The reason why Linux web/file servers pop up everywhere is precisely
because there is NO mandate to report "commercial use" to some fixed
owner that wants to audit licensing fees. They would never have
gotten into such widespread use in industry otherwise.
There's certainly room for PostgreSQL to have a sub-motto something
like:
_PostgreSQL: Free software means no need to fear license audits._
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