licensing implications

[Les Mikesell]

Don Russell wrote:
>
>>>
>>> If a company has a commercial software product using some proprietary
>>> database, and they want to switch to using MySQL, does the GPL license
>>> allow them to continue to sell their product just as they did before, or
>>> does GPL then mean their entire product has to fall under GPL?
>> If it links with the MySQL client libraries, then the code so linked must
>> be
>> GPL.
>>
> 
> I'm not sure what's meant by "links with MySQL"... do you mean "link" as in
> combining object modules to create a single executable? That won't be the
> case. I envision a communication link, to a mySQL server, possibly (probably
> on the same physical machine as the "application". There would be o need to
> change mySQL, other than through any normal configuration parameters...

You normally need a client library linked with your application to 
accomplish this communication.  You can get a commercial license for 
mysql if you don't want to have the GPL terms affect your linked code.

> 
>> Or, you could use the BSD-licensed PostgreSQL instead and not have
>> licensing
>> issues.
>>
>> But I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
>>
> 
> No worries... I'm just "testing the waters" to get a feel for what's what...
> 
> I appreciate the suggestion...

Postgresql has some other advantages too.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com