MySQL client libraries licensing (was Fedora Core 2 wishlists)

[Robert Marcano]

On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 14:57, Adam Debus wrote:
> >
> > I think that the real "problem" fall over the person that develops php
> > based software and is using MySQL, remember that the GPL does not
> > restrict you to distribute GPL licensed code with software that uses
> > other licenses, If you develop an application with php and mysql4 your
> > code must be GPL (unless you obtain a different license from the MySQL
> > developers)
> >
> 
>     As it has been explined to me by a lawyer: That's only true if you are
> embedding the mysql library in your software (statically linking). Merely
> using MySQL as a database for PHP does not tie you to either license because
> you are not embedding code from either program.
> 

That was true before the client libraries for MySQL (Java, C, etc..)
were changed from LGPL to GPL

>     The same goes for Perl or C/C++. Writing code that utilizes the language
> does not automatically tie you to the license the programming language uses,
> unless you statically link against the libraries.
> 
>     Otherwise, pretty much nothing in Linux would be other then GPL, since
> that's what glibc is licensed under, including PHP, Perl and Apache, all of
> which have licenses other then GPL.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Adam Debus
> Network Engineer, ReachONE Internet
> adam at reachone.com