On Tue, 10 Feb 2004, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:50:31AM -0700, scott.marlowe wrote:
> > you would still be wholly bound by the GPL. I.e. all the code you write
> > that connects to MySQL would therefore have to be GPL'd. I.e. it does
> > nothing to fix the licensing problems that have been brought up.
>
> I know that's what MySQL claims, but (a) I can't see any plausible
> interpretation of the GPL which makes that enforcable; and (b)
> assuming someone really did fork, I can't see how MySQL's reading of
> the GPL would be relevant (since you'd no longer be using MySQL, but
> YourSQL or whatever it was called).
simple. They GPL'd their connection libs. So, if you write code that has
their connection libs in it, it's gotta be GPL'd.
Now, if you don't mind using the ODBC connector, you're scott free. but
you WILL be bound by the GPL, and the GPL (not MySQL's interpretation,
just the GPL in general) being applied to connect libs seriously limits
your ability to distribute code, since you'd have to GPL your own code if
you distributed it outside your own private organization.
Renaming it would do nothing to help you. The GPL would still bite you
pretty hard on distribution if you decide to use the GPL'd connect libs.