> On Wed, 2003-12-31 at 15:44, Gerald Henriksen wrote: > > the existing license. Attempting to contact everyone who has > > contributed to a popular project like PHP is likely impossible, and at > > least one is unlikely to be willing to accept a different license. > > PHP has changed it's licens quite a few times, even to the point of one > of its version not being a Free Software license. That's in the past > (but not too distant) fortunately. So I guess it is feasible. > > > >Why do you insist that it is a MySQL licensing problem? I suspect it is > > >more a problem of someone being lazy. PHP's faq says: > > > > It is a MySQL licensing problem because MySQL changed the license. > > They had to know this would cause a problem because they went to a > > more restrictive license (LGPL -> GPL). > > > > Presumably this was done to force more people/companies to pay for the > > commercial version of MySQL instead of using the free version, but the > > net result is that a lot of free software projects can no longer use > > MySQL. > > Wrong in various accounts: > > a) The "Proprietary" license of MySQL, since Free Software is > commercial and even RedHat has distributed MySQL in its commercial > context (I bought a few CD's, and they came with MySQL). > > b) To force more people using the Free Software DB to make non-Free > software into paying instead of sucking on their efforts > > c) only Free Software that is licensed with a GPL incompatible license > or that depends on such software has problems with it. Free Software > licensed with the GPL or Lesser GPL are a clearly huge amount of > programs. > > > >I particularly like the part: > > > > > ><<Unix users, at least the ones who know what they are doing, tend to > > >always build PHP against their system's libmyqlclient library simply by > > >doing --with-mysql=/usr when building PHP.>> > > > > Yes, in the past with MySQL 3. > > No, still today. However, they might have to make some changes > themselves, like applying patches not distributed or supported by the > PHP guys. > > > However the ones who *really* pay attention won't do it with MySQL 4 > > because it violates the MySQL license. > > Not exactly. The GPL only adds restrictions upon distribution acts. The > software that depends on PHP does not link with it. What links with > mysql and is being distributed is PHP, and here is the problem. > > On a personal note, software that doesn't use standard SQL deserves the > troubles it's going through right now :) > > Rui Okay, I'm simple minded enough to be confused. I just read the MySQL statement about their version being under the GPL. I just read the PHP license that comes with the most current version of the production software (4.3.4). I'm being asked to recommend a Linux platform for a MySQL/Apache/PHP server. I see no reason that I as a consultant cannot build, for a commercial client, a Fedora/MySQL 4/PHP 4 machine. Am I missing something? (Besides most of my brain cells....) ciao! leam --
