Having been a free software user and supporter for many years, I am disheartened by some of the comments made in the MySQL/Oracle debate regarding the GNU Public License (GPL) and other licenses. There is much throwing around of misconceptions and untruths about licenses and their differences. In this blog, I shall take on some of the bigger misconceptions.
While Linux is indeed distributed under the GPL, as is MySQL, Linux has an exception that allows anyone to run any kind of applications (including closed source applications) on top of Linux.
Monty says: Help keep the Internet free
There is nothing in the GPL that forbids running closed source applications on top of GPL-licensed software. The only thing that GPL has in this regard is that if you make changes to GPL-licensed software and re-distribute it as a binary, then …
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