On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 04:46:25PM -0500, Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 10:20:28PM +0100, Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo wrote: > > > We were recently contacted by MySQL and informed that the MySQL client > > > libraries are now under GPL license and not LGPL license as before. > > > Since Asterisk does allow exceptions to GPL, we are removing MySQL support > > > from standard Asterisk. We will, where appropriate, make it available via > > > a separate package which will only be usable when Asterisk is used completely > > > within GPL (i.e. not in conjunction with G.729, OpenH.323, etc). We > > > apologize for the confusion. > > > You may find this in the new "asterisk-addons" package. > > In my opinion that removal was wrong and unnecessary. Copyright holders > > for a GPL package can put exceptions to allow distribution of binaries > > of their software linked to GPL-incompatible pieces of software. And the > > viral seed of GPL has nothing to do here, as the program who links to > > GPL incompatible software is GPL itself. > > If what the Asterisk author says above were true, his only problem were > > not mysql. The same for every program giving an exception for linking > > with OpenSSL or other different GPL incompatible software. > It sounds like Asterisk's authors wish to allow Asterisk to be linked > against GPL-incompatible libraries (which I assume "G.729" and "OpenH.323" > are examples of). > If they wish to do this, they need an explicit exception from the copyright > holders of *all* GPL works being linked against. This means that not only > must the Asterisk authors grant an exception; they also must have an exception > from the MySQL copyright holders, as well, and any other GPL libraries they > use. > Presumably, MySQL won't grant such an exception. Therefore, distributing > an Asterisk binary linked against both MySQL and G.729 violates the license > of MySQL. Exceptions granted by Asterisk can't fix this (though they can > make it worse if poorly implemented, as below). libopenh323 is distributed under the MPL 1.0, for which MySQL AB have already granted a linking exception. YMMV for other GPL code involved. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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