MySQL's Influence On the GPL

An anonymous reader writes "Ex-MySQL'er Brian Aker goes into the history of MySQL and the GPL. His point is that MySQL used the GPL in an over-reaching manner; and now that MySQL is gone as an entity, and the campaigns are over, that the GPL may return to an accurate definition."

If MySQL over-reached with the GPL, tell the FSF!

[Entrope]

The FSF also requires contributor agreements, and I would argue that the practical reason for this is the freedom to choose otherwise incompatible licenses in the future (such as migrating from GPLv2 -- not GPLv2-or-at-your-option-any-later-version -- to GPLv3). One common reason that the FSF says they want contributor agreements is to make it easier for them to pursue enforcement actions, but that should be available if they hold any copy rights in the work. They don't need to own all copy rights, but they require that as a condition of distributing the code anyway.

Setting aside all the arguments over whether it's a good idea to require contributor agreements, given that the FSF requires them, it's really hard for me to see how it constitutes any kind of "over-reach".

Re:If MySQL over-reached with the GPL, tell the FS

[teg]

I don't think the "overreached" was about the contributor agreements, but rather the MySQL claim that the protocol for talking to the database (sending SQL queries) was GPL. Thus non-GPL software was not allowed to use the database, and you should buy the commercial versions.

Re:If MySQL over-reached with the GPL, tell the FS

[digitalunity]

You can't copyright a protocol. A protocol is a logical construct. Compare it to something like COM. Microsoft couldn't copyright COM. They could patent it though. They copyrighted MSDN articles about COM, and the COM libraries themselves are copyrighted, but the interface itself is not encumbered by copyrights.

You could however copyright a manual or other "artistic" work describing the protocol, but not the header files required to use the library. Additionally, a protocol could be patented. The MySQL name was trademarked as well. They had their bases covered, but saying the MySQL protocol itself was copyrighted is just blowing hot smoke.

Copyright in protocols

[tepples]

A protocol is a method, process, and system of communication. Here's what United States copyright law has to say on methods, processes, and systems [copyright.gov]: "In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, regardless of the form in which it is described, explained, illustrated, or embodied in such work." Likewise, the IBM PC BIOS syscall interface is a protocol for applications to communicate with hardware drivers, yet Compaq and Phoenix were able to clone it by having one team of programmers make a description of the protocol (which isn't a derivative work) and having another team implement it.

Re:If MySQL over-reached with the GPL, tell the FS

[cduffy]

[citation needed]

Vendors selling knock-off print cartridges have been allowed to use code copied outright from legitimate cartridges in order to fulfill a "security protocol" between the cartridge and printer -- a finding which has held up on appeal.

You might also find Groklaw's analysis of whether the set of values found in the SysV UNIX headers (not the comments, but the functional portions) are copyrightable interesting. Hint: they're not; this is because there's no artistic choice in making them what they are -- their form is precisely dictated by their function.

In the same way, the minimal necessary set of similarities between a 3rd-party MySQL driver and the official one compromises the MySQL protocol, and that protocol (as opposed to documentation describing it or code implementing it at an abstract enough level that the implementer has choices to make in the process) is uncopyrightable for the reason given above.

It's Monty again, having his cake and eating it.

[Bruce Perens]

Brian works for Monty. Monty made something around USD$130M selling MySQL to Sun, who then sold themselves to Oracle. Monty, instead of buying a yacht and taking a vacation, wants to stay in the MySQL business. The problem is that he sold his rights. If someone was "over-reaching" with the GPL at MySQL, Monty was one of the three people behind that. Now, Monty wants to both take back the licensing scheme that made him a very rich man, and keep the money.

Give it up, Monty. Work on something else.

Re:Basic economics

[Bruce Perens]

If you want to understand the economics of Open Source, read this [perens.com]. It pokes some pretty big holes in your thesis.

Re:It's Monty again, having his cake and eating it

[krow]

Hi Bruce!

I don't work for Monty :)

I also don't work on MariaDB (and never have).

Please get your facts straight.

Cheers,
      -Brian

Re:FIFY

[Nerdfest]

Mildly off-topic here, but related. I always wonder why people keep insisting on capitalizing the keywords in SQL statements, and in some cases, column and table names as well. There is also a very high proportion of people seem to like to remove vowels, use all caps and underscores. Most of this seems to be conventions that came out of the 70's and 80's where only upper case was available, and space for column names was limited. Well, the 70's are over, and many DBAs, and through convention, many others have not applied the same readability improvements to SQL as they have to other languages. I think in many cases, the upper case keyword thing was people misunderstanding manual conventions, where they iondicate keywords bt printing them in upper case.

There, I've had my rant. Spread the word on readable SQL.

Re:If MySQL over-reached with the GPL, tell the FS

[ComputerSlicer23]

I agree with you, but I believe you to be wrong on a technical point. The license applied to the kernel is the GPLv2 with the specific stipulation that the userspace boundary was not considered a derivative work by the author. Otherwise, I believe distributing a binary that linked with the Linux kernel would have been a GPL violation (depending on the weird interpretation about OS/tools libraries "get out of jail free" clause in the GPLv2).

See COPYING [kernel.org] from the linux kernel. The absolute top clarifies the copyright owners distinctions.

The thing about the GPL is that it isn't "viral" despite what folks claim. It merely has terms of usage, just like virtually any other software. When found in violation of the terms, the easiest way to comply happens to be to release your source. You could stop using the GPL software and move along. The only person who can take you to court over the GPL is a copyright holder. Your "customers" sure can't. So if Linus says: "I don't consider that a derivative work", in the legal document describing it, he'll have a really hard time telling folks in court: "I think that's a derived work, and they are in violation of my license".

Kirby

Re:It's Monty again, having his cake and eating it

[Bruce Perens]

Well, protocols are the subject of patents rather than copyright so I never felt any need to listen to Monty about that particular point. It's more his protesting the GPL's terms now that they are being applied to him rather than by him. And in that regard your presentation sounds really familiar.

Bruce

Re:It's Monty again, having his cake and eating it

[weicco]

Well, protocols are the subject of patents rather than copyright

I second that. I live in Finland which is part of EU. Of course Finnish laws applies only in Finland and not in other EU countries. Here's my translation of our copyright law's opening section. I couldn't find official translation.

He, who has created literary or artistic creation, has copyright on the said creation, may it be literary or explanatory, in writing or spoken representation, composition or performance, a film, photograph or other artistic composition, architectural, art handicraft or product of industrial art. Maps and desing plans and graphic designs and computer programs are also considered as literary work.

This is pretty clear. Protocol specification document is a literary work and it can and will be placed under copyright law and it can be GPLed too. But not the actual protocol since it is not a literary work. Literary work is something concrete like a book or computer program while protocols are abstract by nature.

Unfortunately I couldn't find a single precedent from our supreme court or in any other lower court. This means that no-one has ever tried to copyright protocols and defend them in the court or that someone has tried but the court hasn't even taken it under consideration.

And yes, I'm not a lawyer but I love doing research on legal stuff.

Re:It's Monty again, having his cake and eating it

[Bruce Perens]

Start with patent 4,549,302 on the guard time in the Hayes Modem protocol. That's from 1985. I'm sure there are others. Surely the touch-tones were patented before then. Indeed, there must be telephony ones going back to the 1920's.