> I'd have added one thing to the licence: that this
> licence is GPL but after three years it reverts to BSD,
> then Oracle wouldn’t have bought Sun because we’d be free
> within three years and MySQL would be BSD and nobody
> could take that away
What is the problem with the GPL in this case? That changes / additions must be given to Oracle?
I think it's somebody who doesn't like GPL and does like BSD using too many words. With BSD, you can incorporate it into your closed source code or add closed source code to it. It becomes free as in beer.
The only thing you need to link to is the client library, as talking to the database over a socket is not linking. I believe there are non GPL client libraries now for many languages.
MySQL was developed buy MySQL AB and they owned copyrights to the code. They provided dual licensing option, GPL and commercial licence. It made sense for Oracle to buy the company because they were only ones who could sell commercial licensees. Under BSD that would have not been possible.
If the licence would have been 3 years of GPL, then BSD, Oracle would have bought only three years monopoly to sell commercial licensees to the software. After that, owning the copyright would be mostly meaningless.
Monty Program Ab (company developing MariaDB) is now restricted to GPL/LGPL fork of the MySQL (that's what MariaDB is) they are not able to sell closed source versions.
Personally, I don't see problem with this. I guess it just limits the money making abilities of Monty Program Ab.
It feels like Monty wants to be able to have his cake (the money he made from selling MySQL to Sun) and eat it too (continue to make money selling some sort of MySQL license). If MySQL was BSD-licensed instead of GPL, presumably he'd be able to pursue an "open-core" model where he could sell proprietary extensions to MySQL.
Comments
Can somebodody comment on this?
What is the problem with the GPL in this case? That changes / additions must be given to Oracle?I think it's somebody who doesn't like GPL and does like BSD using too many words. With BSD, you can incorporate it into your closed source code or add closed source code to it. It becomes free as in beer.
If you want to link your proprietary software to GPL-ed MySQL, you can't. They used to sell (expensive) licenses if you wanted to do that.
I know because I wanted to use it this way and was forced to use SQLite instead (which performed nicely btw).
I am not sure how MariaDB solves these issues though? Because they will have to stay on GPL forever if I understand correctly.
The only thing you need to link to is the client library, as talking to the database over a socket is not linking. I believe there are non GPL client libraries now for many languages.
One thing they have done is to create a LGPLd client library.
MySQL was developed buy MySQL AB and they owned copyrights to the code. They provided dual licensing option, GPL and commercial licence. It made sense for Oracle to buy the company because they were only ones who could sell commercial licensees. Under BSD that would have not been possible.
If the licence would have been 3 years of GPL, then BSD, Oracle would have bought only three years monopoly to sell commercial licensees to the software. After that, owning the copyright would be mostly meaningless.
Monty Program Ab (company developing MariaDB) is now restricted to GPL/LGPL fork of the MySQL (that's what MariaDB is) they are not able to sell closed source versions.
Personally, I don't see problem with this. I guess it just limits the money making abilities of Monty Program Ab.
It feels like Monty wants to be able to have his cake (the money he made from selling MySQL to Sun) and eat it too (continue to make money selling some sort of MySQL license). If MySQL was BSD-licensed instead of GPL, presumably he'd be able to pursue an "open-core" model where he could sell proprietary extensions to MySQL.
http://ostatic.com/blog/oracle-mysql-and-the-gpl-dont-take-m...