post FOSDEM

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

On 02/16/2010 06:58 PM, Byron Jones wrote:
> when i was looking at building a windows installer for bugzilla i emailed
> mysql for clarification.  the response was that unless the open source
> product is licensed as gpl, you're not able to bundle mysql in your
> installer.  this was several years ago however.
> 
> http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/index.html
> 
> i suspect they have different licensing terms for distros vs open-source
> projects.

	Ohh, no, actually, distros used to have the same problem, I remember
this now! I thought that the FOSS Exception was supposed to resolve this:

	http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/

	Except that it appears that it only applies to the client libraries.
However, this item in the FSF FAQ:

	http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCompatInstaller

	Particularly "the installer and the files it installs are separate
works" would be enough for me to suspect that Bugzilla and MySQL, though
both being installed by the same installer, would be considered separate
works. Otherwise no distro could ship GPL'ed software that was installed
by its installer along with GPL-incompatible software (which, I believe,
every distro does).

	-Max
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