mysql 4.x and fedoracore2

[Scot L. Harris]

On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 13:38, Thomas Zehetbauer wrote:
> On Mit, 2004-10-27 at 11:35 -0400, Scot L. Harris wrote:
> > That is the way I read it.  At one point it even appeared that in a
> > corporate situation they wanted a commercial license for applications
> > that were used internally only.  Worded along the lines of if you have
> > any doubts you better buy a license.  
> 
> What's wrong with this? Surely they want everyone who can afford it to
> buy a license. They make a living and fund the development from selling
> licenses and support!
> 

I don't have any issues with them earning a living by selling support. 
Based on the changes they made to their licensing a large majority of
people writing applications using mysql are now exposed if they don't
purchase a license from mysql.  

As such IMHO the better option is to switch databases.  That is my
choice.  You can pay mysql if you like.  And who knows, I may have a
project down the road where it makes perfect sense to purchase license
and support from mysql if that is a better choice for some reason.  I
don't see that happening any time soon but in some alternate reality it
may occur.  :)

I had used mysql in the past for a few quick and dirty applications that
were used internally.  With the changes I had to re-evaluate the
software I used as I did not want to have to come up with a few thousand
dollars to buy licenses for something that was used only internal to the
company.  The financial people hate to get unexpected or un-budgeted
invoices.  :)

> > I have found postgresql to be an excellent replacement with no questions
> > about licensing issues.  
> 
> And best of all, any $$$ company can take all or part of the postgresql
> source code and sell it as or with their products. In the long run they
> will add their own patented extensions and leave open source one step
> behind.
> 

I agree with the first statement, companies can bundle postgresql with
their products they sell.  Not a bad thing, and I believe there are a
number of companies that fund some if not all of the development
activities for postgresql.  SQL-Ledger is a good example of someone that
wrote a very good application that uses a database.  In this case it
uses a postgresql database which makes the package even more appealing
since you don't have to have a multi-thousand dollar license for the
database.  

I am less sure about your second statement.  If a company added their
own patented extensions then it would in effect not be postgresql
anymore, it would be based on postgresql.  But if that did occur I
believe you would find very few people would adopt such a package unless
they released the patent back to postgresql.  Market forces at work. And
open source would most likely rise to the occasion and add features that
meet or exceed the patented features that said company added.

> I do not want this and I doubt you do. Therefore I refuse to contribute,
> endorse or even use software projects allowing this type of intellectual
> property theft.
> 
> Tom

Your choice.  I don't see how intellectual property theft came into this
discussion exactly.  In the long run I believe the market will sort
things out.  Sort of how XFree86 and xorg has sorted out.  Most
distributions have adopted xorg.  :)


-- 
Scot L. Harris
webid at cfl.rr.com

Take an astronaut to launch.