[Wylug-discuss] MySQL licencing...

[John Leach]

--
MySQL is (and always has been) released under the terms of the GPL.
Under these terms, there is no difference between commercial and non
commercial purposes.  They cannot release it under GPL for non-
commercial use only, it doesn't work that way.  Use it any way you like,
just abide by the GPL.

They offer a second licensing (the "Commercial License") option which
you can pay for.  This allows companies to do things the GPL prohibits.
I would expect the most common use is for companies to distribute non-
GPL apps that use the MySQL libraries.

If the code you are developing will be GPL'ed, then you do not need the
"Commercial License".  (actually they seem to allow most proper open-
source licenses, not just GPL (so BSD, LGPL etc.))

Purchasing MySQL obviously supports the MySQL company, though they seem
to be doing quite well anyway.

Of course the obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and if I was
actually a lawyer, I'd be a very lazy one.  And I'd hate myself.

see http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/commercial-license.html
for more (though I believe they are wrong about distributing MySQL
within your own organisation, but what do I know).

On Thu, 2005-02-24 at 11:12 +0000, Robert Speed wrote:
> Just a quickie.
>
> Can anyone explain the MySQL 4 licencing for commercial purposes ?
>

--
GPG: B89C D450 5B2C 74D8 58FB A360 9B06 B5C2 26F0 3047
WEB: http://johnleach.co.uk/words
--
Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part

[ signature.asc of type application/pgp-signature deleted ]
--