NYCPHP Meetup

[Michael Sims]

On Friday 10 November 2006 3:45 pm, Brian Dailey wrote:
> "If you build an intranet application and deploy it inside your
> organisation, your users can request the source code and legally you
> have to give it to them. It’s not likely that they will know that you’re
> running the GPL version of MySQL so that they have the right to request
> it but legally you have to provide the source code upon request."
>
>  From http://www.lamp2lapo.com/
>
> Does this apply to ALL web-based applications (e.g., ones written in
> PHP)? If I write a website in PHP that uses MySQL without a commercial
> license, do I have to share the code?
>
> Help me out here. Am I understanding this correctly?

No, the claim on lamp2lapo.com is false.

GPL licensing requires that if you MODIFY THE SOURCE CODE OF THE
APPLICATION and then REDISTRIBUTE IT, you must provide the source of the
modified application on request.

Thus if you modify how MySQL functions (maybe you've got a better way to
index tables, or something), and then redistribute your improved database
application (you call it "MyBetterSQL"), you must provide the source code
of that application on request.

If you modify how MySQL functions (maybe you've got a better way to index
tables, or something), but DON'T redistribute your improved database
application (you just use it yourself), you need not provide the source
code of that application.

If you merely use MySQL "as is", as 99.9999% of everyone does, you need
 not provide the source code.

You never need to provide the source code of something, such as a PHP
application, that is merely built adjacent to MySQL rather than being
intricately linked with it.

Paying for MySQL's commercial license allows one to modify MySQL and
distribute applications that are intricately bound together with it, and
not distribute the altered source code.

Lamp2lapo.com is lying (and I do say lying, rather than mistaken, because
anyone speaking "authoritatively" about GPL licensing certainly knows the
rules by 2006).


Michael Sims