GPL

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Tue, 2007-10-09 at 14:08 +0100, Andy Green wrote:
> Somebody in the thread at some point said:
> 
> > In most cases, the end user supplies his own copy of the library, which
> > he obtained as a standard component of his OS distribtution, so I think
> > the whole concept is on pretty shaky legal ground. But, I wouldn't want
> > to be the one paying the court costs to sort it out.  And in the case of
> > MySql there's not much reason to, since PostgresSQL is arguably a better
> > database without any of the restrictions.  Even better, use ODBC, perl
> > DBI, or a similar database independent interface and let the end user
> > choose his own database so there can be no claim that you have created a
> > derived work.
> 
> I should think the vast bulk of work "using" MySQL is protected from
> this by being a PHP script or some other scripting language where SQL is
> used as one language database binding amongst many.

The fact that PHP links to the MySQL client libraries *is* a licensing
issue--exactly the issue that led to the FOSS exception for MySQL client
libraries that I linked to earlier in the thread.  It is fortunate that
when MySQL moved from LGPL to GPL, PHP and MySQL were able to work out a
compromise, or there would be no php-mysql package today.

The fact that you write programs in PHP, however, does not subject them
to the terms of the PHP license.  You can write proprietary applications
in PHP to your heart's (and wallet's) content, although concealing the
source of a PHP program is problematic.

> 
> -Andy
> 
> 
-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs