Reading the GNU license for MySQL, it is unclear to me when I have to actually pay a license fee to MySQL. I am running a cold fusion site with MySQL as the database. This is an internal site for my employer. It is not accessible to the outside world. I was told by someone once that I didn't have to the pay a MySQL license fee if I made all the Cold Fusion code for the site freely available. If I didn't make it available, I would then have to pay the license fee because the Cold Fusion code was 'connected' to MySQL. Does the CF code fall under the GNU license because it is considered part of the 'Program', and therefore has to be given away? Can anyone clear this up?
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The link you posted says this in the first paragraph:
"The Commercial License, which allows you to provide commercial software licenses to your customers >> or distribute MySQL-based applications within your organization<<. This is for organizations that do not want to release the source code for their applications as open source / free software:"
That seems to say that we DO have to buy a license to use it within our company. Am I reading this wrong?
It does seem that way. The companies I have worked for that used MySQL took the stance that they met the GPL license requirements because the company didn't distribute the application outside the company, and the source was freely available inside the company.
Ethically and legally speaking, I would say it would be better to purchase a license.
Practically speaking, until you distribute some code to the outside world, who would know?
If you (or your lawyers) decide you are obligated to pay and you don't want to, you could switch to PostgreSQL, which is distributed under the BSD license, which simply says that whatever you do, it isn't U of C's problem.
It depends on the statements. If they are all standard SQL, they won't require much change, if any.
According to one article at http://www.databasejournal
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by: snoyes_jwPosted on 2004-07-13 at 09:24:26ID: 11540555
Hi theamzngq,
You can read MySQL's licensing requirements at http://www.mysql.com/produ
Basically, if you distribute the software, you either have to make the source available, or you have to pay for a license. Since yours is an internal site, you don't have to pay, since the only "customer" is your own company, which owns the CF code anyway.