maria-discuss team mailing list archive

[Michael Widenius <monty@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

This is a small addition to Jay Lozier <jslozier@xxxxxxxxx> exellent
answer.

>>>>> "Vineet" == Vineet Deodhar <vineet.deodhar@xxxxxxxxx> writes:

Vineet> I am using MySQL at present.
Vineet> I came across MariaDB, a drop-in replacement for MySQL.

Vineet> 2 simple questions--
Vineet> 1) File names in MariaDB, in many cases, are same as those in MySQL.
Vineet> Wouldn't that attract objection from Oracle as 'breach of the copyright' ?

All files names are actually identical (and this is intentionally to
keep MariaDB as a MySQL replacement).

Copyright doesn't apply to filenames. It's ok to have identical file
names, binary names etc.

For example, GPL allows you to take a distribution, do some changes
and redistribute it. It doesn't require you to change all file names
just because you modified something. (Requiring that would probably be
a breach of the GPL).


Vineet> 2) May I use MariaDB for commercial distribution (with or without using its
Vineet> source) ? Whether the license is similar to MIT license?

You can't change MariaDB and distribute is as closed source.
However, in many cases, as long as you don't link your application
with a GPL library, you can use and distribute MySQL and MariaDB also
with a closed source library.

For details, see:
https://kb.askmonty.org/en/licensing-faq/

If needed, we can provide a LGPL C client library for those that
prefer to use C to connect to MySQL/MariaDB.

Regards,
Monty