Open Stack

On 06/14/2014 01:15 PM, Monty Taylor wrote:
> On 06/14/2014 12:59 PM, Richard Fontana wrote:
>> On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 07:13:08AM +0100, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
>>> Forwarding a question from openstack-dev about the implications of our
>>> use of mysql-python, which is a GPLv2 licensed library.
>>
>> It looks to me that mysql-python is actually dual-licensed under GPL
>> "or the original license based on Python 1.5.2's license", which would
>> seem to be the simple noncopyleft Stichting Mathematisch Centrum
>> license in the Python license stack. Not sure if that helps. I'm not
>> clear on whether the concern is mysql-python or extends to the fact
>> that MySQL itself is GPL-licensed.
> 
> So, first of all - I'd like to say that in my non-lawyer opinion, there
> is no problem.
> 
> However - there are at least three potential things that might want
> addressed:
> 
> 1) mysql-server is GPL'd. This might be interesting to people who are
> shipping complete solutions. Quite honestly, nothing about MySQL'd GPL
> license should attach unless someone is modifying MySQL itself, which is
> massively unlikely
> 
> 2) libmysqlclient is GPL'd. MySQL Inc did this on purpose so that they
> could extort people into paying for licenses they didn't actually need.
> It's important to bring that up because
> 
> 3) mysql-python, as you say, is dual-licensed, but it uses
> libmysqlclient under the covers, so as vague as several of the other
> issues are here, I think it's pretty clear that mysql-python has to be
> GPL, since it quite explicitly is a derived work.
> 
> So the question at hand is whether or not the license of libmysqlclient
> carries through and attaches to OpenStack. I contend that it does not,
> for a specific reason: we're using it as an optional plugin.
> 
> We don't use mysql-python itself. We use sqlalchemy, which has pluggable
> provider support. One of the plugins that can be used with sqlalchemy is
> MySQL. Another is Postgres. Another is Oracle. Etc. So nothing about
> OpenStack _itself_ requires MySQL or libmysqlclient. It is a
> runtime/deployment choice.
> 
> However, I am not a lawyer - but the above is why I don't think it
> attaches or is a problem.

Also - the FOSS exception.