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Re: MariaDB and the SCA

 

Hi Arjen,

(Also posted to Maria-Discuss, so postings to Maria-Developers can be dropped on follow-up).

On Sep 3, 2009, at 1:21 PM, Arjen Lentz wrote:

Hi Henrik, Kristian,

On 03/09/2009, at 9:05 PM, Henrik Ingo wrote:
On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 12:51 PM, Kristian
Nielsen<knielsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Kristian Nielsen <knielsen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Davi Arnaut <Davi.Arnaut@xxxxxxx> writes:

I've been monitoring the maria-developers list and there are some
patches that we would like to gradually incorporate into our
branches. For a practical example, i would like to merge into 5.1
parts of this (http://tinyurl.com/q2ulgt) patch by Kristian.

Negotiations between Monty Program and Sun have started some time ago on a deal which would cover how Sun will get the rights it needs (ie. SCA) to include the MariaDB code into the MySQL code, and how Monty Program will receive compensation for giving these rights. As I understand it, these
negotiations are however still in the early phase.

Apparently, this is moving nowhere :-(.

Davi, I'm sorry there has been no progress on this. We discussed this again in
MariaDB, and would like to get things working better for now.

What Monty suggested was that it would work for Sun if we submit specific
patches under a BSD-new license.

I realise that the http://tinyurl.com/q2ulgt patch request is now so old that it may be of no interest to you any longer. But if you have a request for this or other patches, please send them. All developers at Monty Program have the ability to submit their work to Sun at their own discretion, so we should be able to make this work on a low-overhead technician-to-technician level.

Thanks for picking this up. I just wanted to confirm this is true and
we are happy to cooperate.


It's how it works with Drizzle.
However, I've blogged and otherwise written and spoken about this before, it does not make me particularly happy.

Here's the layout:
- the GPL parts of the code are owned by Sun.
- BSD can be incorporated non-OSS derivatives.

And the consequenec of this is that Sun is able to perpetuate the dual licensing model - a model which perhaps worked once upon a type and did well, but which is definitely outdated, and only abused by greedy salespeople.

As far as I know, with the advent of the BSD licensed libdrizzle (https://launchpad.net/libdrizzle ), which also runs with MySQL (and I assume MariaDB), the dual licensing model is now irrelevant.

My reading of the GPL license (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) is that only programs that link GPL components become part of the greater work.

From the GPL section "1. Source Code.":

"For example, Corresponding Source includes interface definition files associated with source files for the work, and the source code for shared libraries and dynamically linked subprograms that the work is specifically designed to require, such as by intimate data communication or control flow between those subprograms and other parts of the work."

So linked sub-programs are included. But:

"However, it does not include the work's System Libraries, or general- purpose tools or generally available free programs which are used unmodified in performing those activities but which are not part of the work."

So an unmodified free program like mysqld (the MySQL daemon), are not part of the work.

This means that a programming linking libdrizzle, and then accessing mysqld over a communications _channel_ (like TCP, socket, pipe, etc), does not need to be GPL.

By agreeing to this arrangement, contributors ensure that Sun is able to continue that.
Do you want that?

"yes" might be a valid choice, on the basis that it might be more important to get the changes upstream.
But I think the question needs to be asked explicitly. Hence.


--
Paul McCullagh
PrimeBase Technologies
www.primebase.org
www.blobstreaming.org
pbxt.blogspot.com






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