Half of MySQL’s business is OEM, but that doesn’t mean that half the revenue of any derivative MySQL product also must be OEM licensing fees.

I am well aware of how dual-licensing works. I am also well aware of the *existing* thriving economy around MySQL. If the GPL is so limiting, why does that thriving economy exist? Storage engine vendors like Calpont and Tokutek are betting their business that they will money off the GPL’d MySQL.

Why is it a different problem for the economy around MySQL if Oracle owns a GPL’d MySQL versus Sun owning a GPL’d MySQL?

Monty Program has been conflating the two issues of “Oracle owning MySQL” and “MySQL being GPL”. They are not the same issue!!!

Ross: Also thanks for providing a clear example of the same.

Lukas: No, it’s not only or even mainly about storage engines, it’s about normal closed source applications using MySQL in various ways. See the posts above you for clarifications. Btw, about half of MySQL’s business is that kind of OEM use, so it’s not as insignificant as people would want to believe.

henrik

At the same time I do think that Monty was just using inaccurate language by mistake in the above cases:

1) Monty feels like the storage engine market needs special care. This is what he talks about when he talks about commercial software developers not being able to use the GPL version. Drivers are to some extend a similar scenario in the Linux kernel world, but there are very few companies that try to innovate let alone make driver development their main source of income (by selling drivers to end users).

2) When he talks about the GPL given the copyright owner very strong control, then he seems to be in fact talking about the dual licensing model, which is enabled by the GPL, but noteably not by more permissive licenses like the BSD.

3) This circles back to 1) and the perceived importance of the storage engine developer ecosystem.

“Nothing, I believe. It would give anyone the freedom to take MySQL, make changes to it, and sell it as a closed source product, without having to share the source. And that sounds to me like a much better way to control one’s closed source customers than the GPL.”

You would have been correct here if you stated
“nobody except the owner of the code has the freedom to make closed source versions”

As your statement stands, it adds to the misconceptions that you sought to clear up.

This is almost correct. The problem for closed-source applications (and their producers, whom Monty refers to as “closed source customers”) is that the GPL also enforces redistribution of code that links to GPL’ed code (see section 2b). That means that, for example, Java programs are subject to the license of the MySQL Connector/J, which is GPLed (like all the connectors).

This isn’t a problem for programmers writing user-space code on Linux because Linus Torvalds believed it shouldn’t, and explicitly said so in its license:
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls – this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of “derived work”. Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the linux kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

See: http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/oem/

Adobe, Citrix and Motorolla are all examples of Embeded/OEM customers whose usage of MySQL in closed source applications requires an exception.

See: http://www.mysql.com/customers/embedded/

These OEM customers enter into an agreement not unlike one they would have with any other proprietary software vendor.

Source code is not technically required to be given but may be granted to OEM customers. OEMs are not permitted to modify the source code and redistribute those changes as part of a closed source product.

Your definition of “closed source customer” is more akin to MySQL Enterprise Customers who pay for special binary releases. These releases are also licensed under the GPL and they have access to modify and redistribute source code just like the Community editions. The difference being that they also get access to paid support, hotfix releases and some closed source add-ons like MySQL Enterprise Monitor.

I can’t comment directly to Monty’s comments but it’s sufficient to say I don’t share his views.