[wellylug] Writing commercial apps which connect to GPL software.

[Peter Harrison]

In addition here is some quotes from the GPL to clarify my previous position:

"2.b You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or 
in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be 
licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this 
License."

In this clause we see that if your application contains MySQL then the whole 
product must be GPL. 

"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable 
sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably 
considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, 
and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as 
separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole 
which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be 
on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to 
the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote 
it."

The question here is if "distribution of the whole" means just on the same CD. 
I personally think the link must be stronger - ie if you install MySQL as 
part of your installer this might constitute being part of a whole. However, 
having a separate MySQL install on the same CD would not.

"Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your 
rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the 
right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on 
the Program. "

The important thing here is that we are trying to distingish between the use 
of an application, and applications which are based on GPL. If your 
application simply uses MySQL then there should be no issue. If there is any 
concern, simply provide a totally separate CD for MySQL.

Hope this helps,

Regards,

Peter

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