Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
Under that theory every single website that uses PHP with a MySQL backend (probably millions of them!) that does not provide a link to the PHP source is violating the MySQL license..Hi,
I must remind you that I am not a lawyer, if you want legal advice go get one, since this is my informed opinion:
On Tue, 2004-02-24 at 12:56 +0000, WipeOut wrote:
Ok, how does this work.. We are developing a PHP based web app that will never be sold and the code is not GPL.. It will be hosted by us and people will subscribe to the service that we are offering and pay a monthly fee.. Would I be required to buy a MySQL licence?
What you're talking about is the web services 'loophole'. This loophole consists of trying to confuse people into thinking that just because the software is running on a remote server, that you don't use it.
As you can understand easily, it makes no sense, it is just an extension of the computer to the internet, and your 'mouse and keyboard' becomes the browser.
IMHO this is morally equal to giving a copy of the software for someone to use, but I don't know if this would stand with current copyright law.
If you do it as you say, you will likely be using it in a proprietary way, so even though you're using GPL'ed software, you are not giving your users any of the required freedoms, so you could be in violation of copyright law by not respecting the GPL, so you probably should buy a proprietary license from MySQL AB.
You could sove that very easily by adding a link to download said web software.
Rui
If that is the case it looks like MySQL will not be the worlds most popular DB for very long..
