http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing/foss-exception.html A few programs link currently the old non-GPL libmysqlclient10 in order to retain compatibility with other free licenses which have known problems and require exceptions (e.g. openssl). AFAIK the new statement should allow all those program to link the current libmysqlclient instead. See proftpd-mysql for an example of such kind of programs. Comments? -- Francesco P. Lovergine