Re: [ossig] CA open-sources Ingres database - News & Technology -CNETAsia

[Dinesh Nair <dinesh@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 27 May 2004, Kenneth Wong wrote:

> Agree with all that you pointed out but I'm uncomfortable with how MySQL
> corporation is very vague in the wording, possibly deliberately so.
> This part:

true, which i myself brought up as well. they're vague. however, based on
my conversations with david axmark, i get the spirit of what they're
trying to say. i put down the vagueness to how swedes may not fully
understand the english language.

another bit of vagueness which i recently clarified was Zend Inc's license
for the Zend Optimizer, which is needed to be distributed should you
choose to use Zend Encoder to optimize your php source. the wording on the
license didnt make it clear if it was legal for a developer to distribute
Zend Optimizer with his software. i contacted Zend and got a clear answer
from them: it's legit to distribute.

> commercial license. However, if you merely use MySQL as your database
> without linking to the libraries, then you can use the GPL version and
> avoid using the commercial license, no?

some part of it must link to the mysql libraries, even if you're using
odbc. the question then remains on how your client program (which is not
linked) communicates with the part that is linked. even the GPL itself
does not provide a clear definition of this, though they do say

"What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal
question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper
criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes,
rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics
of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged).

If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are
definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked
together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining
them into one program.

By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication
mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are
used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if
the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex
internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two
parts as combined into a larger program."

a lot will depend on how a judge defines "intimate enough".

> this case, the GPL version of MySQL database server (not client
> libraries) should be legally acceptable. Morally is another matter.

it is, but then the FSF will include a clause which prevents this in
GPLv3, if and when it comes out. this same clause will conclusive answer
the question of ASPs/ISPs using modified GPLed software to provide a
public service.

> People may end up pointing to MySQL's page and say, "look! You can't do
> anything commercial with the GPL!".

i think a lot of this confusion also arises because people make the
mistake of saying that all commercial software is closed source software,
thus the phrase commercial software becomes another synonym for closed
source software. same way how people confuse public domain software with
open source software. boils down back to how people misunderstand
copyrights and licenses, which is why in a message some moons back i
suggested that licensing/copyright/IP issues be made a mandatory course in
all CS programs in universities and colleges.

> The GPL isn't anti-commercial.

that's actually a matter of definition.

some would say that a commercial entity has to give the best to it's
customer. thus when said entity builds a system, they should be allowed to
include code from the best sources/programmers. wrt my discussion with tai
on GPL/BSD, the GPL does not allow non-GPL code to be included in this
manner. thus, if i used the GPL for my software, i may not be allowed to
include the best sorting code from someone who's released it under a
closed source license and am forced to pick the second best implementation
which is GPLed. i thus am not able to provide the best to my
users/customers. this could be construed as anti-commercial, though not in
the manner that you cannot make money from GPL software.

Regards,                           /\_/\   "All dogs go to heaven."
dinesh@alphaque.com                (0 0)    http://www.alphaque.com/
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