About GPL and proprietary software

[Kaarel]

I don't feel very confident when it comes to software licenses. But
there are some cases I would like to make myself clear. What I am
particulary interested in is when does GPL license become restrictive?
For example say a company has a proprietary software product that only
works with MySQL and no other database system. Are the following cases
legal?
1) This company sells his product under proprietary license and leaves
it up to the client to set up required MySQL server. Or perhaps helps
the client with seting up MySQL with or without extra fee.
2) Clients pay monthly fee to this company for using their proprietary
software which uses MySQL hosted in the companys server.
3) This company sells his product under proprietary license on the CD
which also includes MySQL as free bonus (with source code).

If these cases are valid, then when does GPL license for MySQL (or any
other software in that matter) become truly restrictive for a
proprietary company?

Kaarel
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[Doug McNaught]

Kaarel <ka****@future. ee> writes:

[...]

If these cases are valid, then when does GPL license for MySQL (or any
other software in that matter) become truly restrictive for a
proprietary company?

This is neither a GNU nor a MySQL mailing list. I suggest you take
your question to one of those places, as you'll get a better answer.

-Doug

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[Ron Johnson]

On Sun, 2003-08-31 at 07:26, Kaarel wrote:

I don't feel very confident when it comes to software licenses. But
there are some cases I would like to make myself clear. What I am
particulary interested in is when does GPL license become restrictive?
For example say a company has a proprietary software product that only
works with MySQL and no other database system. Are the following cases
legal?
1) This company sells his product under proprietary license and leaves
it up to the client to set up required MySQL server. Or perhaps helps
the client with seting up MySQL with or without extra fee.
2) Clients pay monthly fee to this company for using their proprietary
software which uses MySQL hosted in the companys server.
3) This company sells his product under proprietary license on the CD
which also includes MySQL as free bonus (with source code).

If these cases are valid, then when does GPL license for MySQL (or any
other software in that matter) become truly restrictive for a
proprietary company?

Why are you asking about MySQL (a GPL-licensed product), on a
PostgreSQL (a BSD-licensed product) mailing list????

Be that as it may:
IANAL, but according to my understanding
(1) proprietary s/w that dynamically links to "GPL" shared libraries
has not broken the GPL.
(2) proprietary s/w that *statically* links to "GPL" libraries has
broken the GPL.
(3) proprietary s/w that "speaks" to "GPL" s/w via a pipe, network
link, etc., does not break the GPL.

Presumably, one of the reasons that PostgreSQL is BSD-licensed is
to avoid issues like this.

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[Peter Eisentraut]

Kaarel writes:

I don't feel very confident when it comes to software licenses. But
there are some cases I would like to make myself clear. What I am
particulary interested in is when does GPL license become restrictive?
For example say a company has a proprietary software product that only
works with MySQL and no other database system. Are the following cases
legal?

That depends on whether the MySQL client library is LGPL (up to version 3)
or GPL (from version 4 on). But a PostgreSQL forum is probably an
entirely inappropriate place to discuss this.

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Peter Eisentraut pe*****@gmx.net
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[Michael Meskes]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 02:26:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:

IANAL, but according to my understanding
(1) proprietary s/w that dynamically links to "GPL" shared libraries
has not broken the GPL.

Sure? My understanding is that it does break GPL. That's why there's an
LGPL.

But since MySQL is double licensed and GPl is just one of the two it
gets even more complicated.

Michael
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Email: Michael at Fam-Meskes dot De
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[Christopher Browne]

The world rejoiced as me****@postgres ql.org (Michael Meskes) wrote:

On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 02:26:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:

IANAL, but according to my understanding
(1) proprietary s/w that dynamically links to "GPL" shared libraries
has not broken the GPL.

Sure? My understanding is that it does break GPL. That's why there's an
LGPL.

But since MySQL is double licensed and GPl is just one of the two it
gets even more complicated.

No, actually, it's pretty simple.

There is (as likely as not) NO issue with the server.

The issue is that the CLIENT software is unavailable in other than GPL
and other "private license-for-money" forms.

In order for you to use MySQL, you have to link GPLed libraries in
with your code. There are no LGPLed libraries; that would break MySQL
AB's business model.

There is considerable unhappiness surrounding this vis-a-vis SAP-DB;
SAP AG had had the server software GPL-licensed, and the client
software licensed under LGPL. Along with renaming it "MaxDB," MySQL
AB is apparently eliminating LGPL-licensed libraries, which is causing
some consternation in the user community. Which will probably point
some system integrators over to use either Firebird or PostgreSQL...
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[Ron Johnson]

On Sun, 2003-08-31 at 14:57, Michael Meskes wrote:

On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 02:26:14PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:

IANAL, but according to my understanding
(1) proprietary s/w that dynamically links to "GPL" shared libraries
has not broken the GPL.

Sure? My understanding is that it does break GPL. That's why there's an
LGPL.

Well, there's this:
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL
and this:
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq....olledInterface
http://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnu...il/010043.html

Linus thinks that dynamic linking is ok, RMS doesn't, but gives
an example boilerplate that says how dynamic linking can be ok
w/ the GPL. It's definitely a grey area.

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Jefferson, LA USA

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[Christopher Browne]

ro***********@c ox.net (Ron Johnson) wrote:

That "_by whatever means_" seems to include "network link", and that
doesn't sound right.

Ah, but in order to use it over the network link you need to be
running their server software, on the one side, and their client
access software, on the other. Both sides are linked to GPL-licensed
software.

Your client software has to link in software belonging to MySQL AB,
and that's where they are now "biting" people on this.

This is one of the reasons why the PHP people removed bundled MySQL
support in version 5 back in June.
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[Michael Meskes]

On Sun, Aug 31, 2003 at 04:14:30PM -0400, Christopher Browne wrote:

Sure? My understanding is that it does break GPL. That's why there's an
LGPL.

But since MySQL is double licensed and GPl is just one of the two it
gets even more complicated.

No, actually, it's pretty simple.
...
The issue is that the CLIENT software is unavailable in other than GPL
and other "private license-for-money" forms.

In order for you to use MySQL, you have to link GPLed libraries in
with your code. There are no LGPLed libraries; that would break MySQL
AB's business model.

Well, isn't that what I said? Okay, granted, you put it into words much
better, but it looks like I wanted to say the same.

MySQL has to GPL the libs to make sure they can make money with there
other license. What I meant to say with LGPL is that this license is for
such a usage, not that MySQl has LGPLed stuff.

Michael
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[Kaarel]

>

This is neither a GNU nor a MySQL mailing list. I suggest you take
your question to one of those places, as you'll get a better answer.

The question in it self was more general than PostgreSQL and MySQL.
However as I currently need to work with both of them I wanted to make
clear the actual differences caused by licensing between the two
products. The other thing is that it is probably a little easier to
explain and understand if there are concrete examples.

I asked this list because I didn't want to subscribe to yet another list
for this matter and pgsql-general sure has the competence to answere
that kind of questions. It has to have.

I asked this list and not MySQL list because I am subscribed to
mysql-general and comparing the two list content I like more what I see
in PostgreSQL lists and the concrete example is about PostgreSQL as much
as it is MySQL. I don't think at a PostgreSQ conference you would guide
me to MySQL conference when I asked this same question would you?

Licensing is quite difficult to understad (at least for me) yet a very
important aspect of software development. I don't intend to ruine
anybodys day I just want a small discussion which in the end would
explain the cases when the licensing aspect of these two concrete
products will play an important role in developing software.

Kaarel

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