maria-discuss team mailing list archive

[Michael Widenius <monty@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

>>>>> "Arjen" == Arjen Lentz <arjen@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Arjen> Hi Monty, Henrik
Arjen> On 07/10/2009, at 12:34 AM, Michael Widenius wrote:
>> I still think it's quite long and not much easier to understand that
>> what we have now:
>> 
>> "Monty Program Ab agrees that when it dual licenses code, it will not
>> restrict the way the third party licensee uses the licensed copy of
>> the code nor restrict how they use their own code. "


Arjen> In that case you might as well just keep it all GPL or BSD and sell it  
Arjen> rather than dual licensing?
Arjen> Then the recipient has all the normal GPL or BSD rights and  
Arjen> obligations that apply to the rest of the code anyway, without need  
Arjen> for extra licensing texts.

The above is for the case when we dual license some code (not MariaDB)
and give them a commercial-only version of the code.

The intent is that in the commercial-only version, we will not put any
unreasonable limitations on how the customer can use the licensed code
(which may include donated code).

The background can be found in for example my blog about the current
MySQL OEM licenses, which I know a lot of customers finds totally
unacceptable.

Arjen> Dual would only make sense for discrete/distinct components, but even  
Arjen> there it might be easier to just have it be GPL or BSD.

This is for the case where the customer does not want to have the code
under GPL. BSD is not an option as then they could release the code
and we would not have any dual-license revenue anymore.

Arjen> People come back to the original company for expertise/customisation  
Arjen> anyway, as they're the experts. As long as the service is good.
Arjen> There's also no incentive to like republish stuff, as that wouldn't be  
Arjen> the core business of the client company. They wouldn't have interest  
Arjen> in that.

If you are successful, there is always someone who will take advantage
of you...

Look for example at MySQL;  If they would license their GPL code as
BSD, they would at once loose all their licensing business.

Regards,
Monty