Open Stack

> On Thu Jun 12 14:13:05 2014, Chris Friesen wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm looking for the community viewpoint on whether there is any chance
> > of license contamination between mysql and nova.  I realize that
> > lawyers would need to be involved for a proper ruling, but I'm curious
> > about the view of the developers on the list.
> >
> > Suppose someone creates a modified openstack and wishes to sell it to
> > others.  They want to keep their changes private.  They also want to
> > use the mysql database.
> >
> > The concern is this:
> >
> > nova is apache licensed
> > sqlalchemy is MIT licensed
> > mysql-python (aka mysqldb1) is GPLv2 licensed
> > mysql is GPLv2 licensed
> >
> >
> >
> > The concern is that since nova/sqlalchemy/mysql-python are all
> > essentially linked together, an argument could be made that the work
> > as a whole is a derivative work of mysql-python, and thus all the
> > source code must be made available to anyone using the binary.
> >
> > Does this argument have any merit?
> 
> the GPL is excepted in the case of MySQL and other MySQL products
> released by Oracle (can you imagine such a sentence being
> written.....), see
> http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/.   If
> MySQL-Python itself were an issue, OpenStack could switch to another
> MySQL library, such as MySQL Connector/Python which is now MySQL's
> official Python driver:
> http://dev.mysql.com/doc/connector-python/en/index.html

Usual IANAL caveats ...

But do these concerns about license contamination from the DB service,
via the client libraries, have any relevance to the prior discussion
about MongoDB licensing?

Substituting:

  s/mysql is GPLv2/mongodb is AGPLv3/
  s/sqlalchemy is MIT licensed/pymongo is Apache licensed/

and noting the MongoDB Inc "promise" about database and client library
separateness.

If there is some relevance, then some of the conclusions to the prior
legal discussion may be useful to recall:

  http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/legal-discuss/2014-March/000189.html

Cheers,
Eoghan

> > Has anyone tested any of the mysql DBAPIs with more permissive licenses?
> 
> I just mentioned other MySQL drivers the other day; MySQL
> Connector/Python, OurSQL and pymysql are well tested within SQLAlchemy
> and these drivers generally pass all tests.   There's some concern over
> compatibility with eventlet, however, I can't speak to that just yet.
> 
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenStack-dev mailing list
> > OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> 
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