MySQL Licenses
MySQL is offering 2 type of licenses: Commercial and Free (GNU/GPL).
Commercial license, as what it named, you need to pay to use at a very "affordable" price of USD595/server/year.
The good news is, there is a free version under the GNU/GPL license, which most of the hosting companies provide. In addition the features of the free version are ALL same as the commercial license. So is it really a good news? The answer might disappoint you.
As stated in MySQL website: "MySQL is free use for those who are 100% GPL", means if I'm using MySQL for my web application, all my source code must be 100% GPL (open source), which also means that my clients can actually modify and resale the codes that I developed for them! As for .NET and Java developer, you might also need to handover the full source code to your client if you are using the free version.
(Ref: http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/opensource-license.html)
Alternatively you can use PostgreSQL or FireBird in replace of MySQL. These 2 database servers are totally free to use without any restriction (Pls doublecheck yourself for the license agreements :P)
Commercial license, as what it named, you need to pay to use at a very "affordable" price of USD595/server/year.
The good news is, there is a free version under the GNU/GPL license, which most of the hosting companies provide. In addition the features of the free version are ALL same as the commercial license. So is it really a good news? The answer might disappoint you.
As stated in MySQL website: "MySQL is free use for those who are 100% GPL", means if I'm using MySQL for my web application, all my source code must be 100% GPL (open source), which also means that my clients can actually modify and resale the codes that I developed for them! As for .NET and Java developer, you might also need to handover the full source code to your client if you are using the free version.
(Ref: http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/licensing/opensource-license.html)
Alternatively you can use PostgreSQL or FireBird in replace of MySQL. These 2 database servers are totally free to use without any restriction (Pls doublecheck yourself for the license agreements :P)
posted by Lee Peng at 10:33 PM
1 Comments:
The GPL is a viral license - but only as far as it is used directly within your application.
The GPL does not require that you ship your source code for your application unless you embed MySQL into the application itself.
In 99.9% of cases, the web application simply makes use of the MySQL at runtime.
Since it is a deployment choice - it is effectively the customer who chooses to use the MySQL database - and not you as the developer that includes it.
For the .NET/Java programmer - the situation is the same.
Your case is not even runtime linking - which according to none other than Mr Torvalds - allows you to embed GPL code into proprietary software in such a way.
I think you've been ready a little too much FUD (understandable).
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