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Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software
From: |
Tim Smith |
Subject: |
Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom |
Date: |
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:15:05 -0700 |
User-agent: |
MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.3b2 (Intel Mac OS X) |
In article <hbmvug$2ikk$1@colin2.muc.de>, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
wrote:
> In gnu.misc.discuss Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> wrote:
>
> > Stallman told the European Commission that
>
> > "the lack of a more flexible license for MySQL will present considerable
> > barriers to a new forked development path for MySQL"
>
> THis is nothing new. The FSF's recommendation has always been "GPL version N,
> or any later version". This is a prime example of what happens when such a
> recommendation is disregarded.
>From the letter to Commission:
Defenders of the Oracle acquisition of its competitor naively say
Oracle cannot harm MySQL, because a free version of the software is
available to anyone under GNU GPL version 2.0, and if Oracle is not
a good host for the GPL version of the code, future development will
be taken up by other businesses and individual programmers, who
could freely and easily "fork" the GPL'd code into a new platform.
This defense fails for the reasons that follow.
MySQL uses the parallel licensing approach to generate revenue to
continue the FLOSS development of the software. If Oracle acquired
MySQL, it would then be the only entity able to release the code
other than under the GPL. Oracle would not be obligated to
diligently sell or reasonably price the MySQL commercial licenses.
More importantly, Oracle is under no obligation to use the revenues
from these licenses to advance MySQL. In making decisions in these
matters, Oracle is facing an obvious conflict of interest the
continued development of a powerful, feature rich free alternative
to its core product.
As only the original rights holder can sell commercial licenses, no
new forked version of the code will have the ability to practice the
parallel licensing approach, and will not easily generate the
resources to support continued development of the MySQL platform.
They aren't talking about the lack of "or any later version" here.
Indeed, if MySQL were licensed under "GPLv2 or any later version", it
would make no difference whatsoever in their above argument, since it
would still be only Oracle that could sell commercial licenses.
Slightly later in the letter, they talk about the GPLv3 issue as an
additional problem that will make forking hard:
Yet another way in which Oracle will have the ability to determine
the forking of MySQL relates to the evolution of the GNU GPL
license. GPL version 2.0 (GPLv2) and GPL version 3.0 (GPLv3) are
different licenses and each requires that any modified program carry
the same license as the original. There are fundamental and
unavoidable legal obstacles to combining code from programs licensed
under the different GPL versions. Today MySQL is only available to
the public under GPLv2.
Many other FLOSS software projects are expected to move to GPLv3,
often automatically due to the common use of the "any later version"
clause. Because the current MySQL license lacks that clause, it will
remain GPLv2 only and it will not be possible to combine its code
with the code of many GPLv3- covered projects in the future. Given
that forking of the MySQL code base will be particularly dependent
on FLOSS community contributions - more so than on in-company
development - the lack of a more flexible license for MySQL will
present considerable barriers to a new forked development path for
MySQL.
--
--Tim Smith
- Re: [News] Richard Stallman Protects MySQL from Oracle, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, David Kastrup, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, David Kastrup, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, David Kastrup, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, David Kastrup, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, David Kastrup, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, Alexander Terekhov, 2009/10/21
- Re: [Matt Asay Tells The Truth] Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom, David Kastrup, 2009/10/21