In the name of freedom, what the MySQL flavor of GPL has achieved is to give special powers of dual-licensing to the "original author" - all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than the others. The MySQL business model is entirely based on this special power they reserved for themselves. Stallman's defense of it (which is not new) is precisely why I have always been wary of using GPL code and am a passionate believer in BSD/MIT license approach to software freedom.

The time has come for a reevaluation of what constitutes real open source. I believe GPL should be excluded from it, and the MySQL business model is the classic example.

To those who answer "Linux", keep in mind that Torvalds unilaterally declared that applications that run on top of Linux (calling Linux via the standard libraries) are exempt from GPL. This is in effect LGPL, not GPL.

MySQL specifically takes the opposite tack: any application that uses the database using standard libraries comes under GPL, for distribution purposes.

LGPL and GPL are very different animals.

I see stuff like this and I wonder about two things: 1) there is another open source (BSD) database - postgresql 2) why should it matter, since the whole purpose of the GPL is to keep Oracle from "destroying" MySQL. Didn't the GPL protect the users in this case?

I'm confused as to why the European Commission is involved with this at all. Anyone cares to explain?

Also, "Web 2.0 companies such as Google, Yahoo and Amazon.com". Good picks for web2.0 companies… :)

And I present to you our version of Dr. Robert Stadler

Impressions to take with a pinch of salt as it has been written after a long day:

when reading previous comments, the word "inconsistancy" comes to my mind. Those comments seem to be written in a unpationated way. Their authors seems rather for free licencing... but STILL!! In my understanding, they may be ultra summarized in "tss, what this guy(stallman) is doing is unsuitable to reach the free licencing goal". AKA he is inconsistant.

I find it rather rare to get this kind of reaction. Usually when fsf people, it is quite pationated, up to religious.

PS: note the humor "free licencing" term to avoid the ridiculous "FOSS" acronym