[Mono-devel-list] ByteFX development

[Jonathan Pryor]

Warning: I am not a lawyer (but I've read the FAQ!). :-)

On Fri, 2004-09-17 at 19:19, Michael J. Ryan wrote:
> Is the bytefx driver using the mysql connector library, also, is using
> an assembly in .net considered a static linking under GPL?

The GPL doesn't differentiate between static or dynamic linking.  It
only cares about linking -- does the GPL'd code exist within your
process?  If so, then your code *must* be GPL.  Period.

See: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLAndPlugins

Just to make things "interesting", using some form of IPC (CORBA,
sockets, etc.) between separate processes doesn't necessarily avoid a
GPL violation: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation

        if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough,
        exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a
        basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger
        program.

Which begs the question: could communicating with a GPL program over a
publicly documented protocol be interpreted as "combining two modules
into one program"?  I imagine that it depends on the protocol -- if it's
a standardized protocol such as ODBC, probably not.  If only one program
uses it --  the GPL program -- then maybe.

You'd certainly have to ask a lawyer about it.

I also have no idea what protocols MySQL supports for IPC.

I can say this: if the MySQL protocol is *only* used by MySQL, and the
protocol requires "intimate" semantics, a non-GPL client library may not
be possible.  (Of course, a definition of "intimate semantics" would
require the involvement of a lawyer.  And possibly a court of law.)

However, I imagine that MySQL supports ODBC, so if you used ODBC to
communicate with MySQL the ODBC client library could be LGPL or MIT/X11.

 - Jon