maria-discuss team mailing list archive

[Jay Lozier <jslozier@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/03/2012 02:18 AM, Vineet Deodhar wrote:
>
> I am using MySQL at present.
> I came across MariaDB, a drop-in replacement for MySQL.
>
> 2 simple questions--
> 1) File names in MariaDB, in many cases, are same as those in MySQL.
> Wouldn't that attract objection from Oracle as 'breach of the copyright' ?
> 2) May I use MariaDB for commercial distribution (with or without
> using its source) ? Whether the license is similar to MIT license?
>
> Thanks,
> Vineet
>
>
>
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I can answer the first question. MySQL is released under the Gnu Public
License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html). The key
requirements of the GPL is that originate provide the source code to the
user and the user has the right to modify the code. If the user releases
the modified code (under a new name), they must release under the same
terms (GPL) the original code was released. The only potential copyright
issue is if I modified MySQL and released it as MySQL and not as
AnotherDB. The problem would be which MySQL is the official version and
the owner of the MySQL name would have legal right because of my not
renaming my fork.

My understanding of the GPL is that one can not change the license to
another (MIT, BSD, and Apache) of any code originally released under it.
If you were to use MySQL or MariaDB as part of a larger commercial
project, my non lawyer, understanding is that you can provided that the
GPL terms for MySQL / MariaDB is obeyed for them. The additional parts,
I believe, can be released under another license if desired. I would
read the GPL carefully,, it probably answers the most of your legal
questions. More information is available http://www.gnu.org

-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier@xxxxxxxxx