Commercial license for MariaDB [closed]

Question

I'm currently working on a closed-source commercial web-project which uses MariaDB as the database. I wonder about the licensing of MariaDB. Do we have to get a license to use it with our commercial project? On the website, they mention the "GNU General Public License, version 2". What means that exactly?

http://kb.askmonty.org/v/mariadb-license

Answer 1

The GPL (GNU General Public License) states that you can use the software free of charge, but you cannot modify and sell it unless you release the source code. This means you can use it in your closed-source project.

MySQL was originally under the GPL, but has some different licensing issues since it was bought up by Oracle. You may still use it under the GPL, but Oracle also offers commercial licenses.

Answer 2

There is a couple of ways to use MariaDB with your commercial closed source software:

• You can buy a license from Oracle to MySQL and then ask Monty Program Ab to give you the right to use all the changes MariaDB have done to MySQL with your project.
• You can use a connector to MySQL that is not GPL and which provides access to more than one database. In this case the GPL of the server does not affect you. You can get such a connector for example from SkySQL.

Read also: http://kb.askmonty.org/en/licensing-faq

Answer 3

I might be wrong, but i don't think that is going to be possible: MariaDB is a branch from MySQL GPLed version. Only MySQL (i.e: Oracle) holds the copyright, and hence is allowed to license the code under a different license. MariaDB does not (up to my knowledge) holds any copyright to the original MySQL source, and hence they cannot relicense it.

Answer 4

MariaDB is only distributed with the GNU GPLv2 license. There is not a commercial license, and there will never be for legal reasons.

However, why do you think you need a commercial license? You need it only in 2 cases:

• Your application uses some plugins that are commercial, or use a license which is not compatible with GPL2.
• MariaDB is embedded in your application.

But usually applications just connect to a MariaDB server, and there is no legal issue, even if they are non-free.

Answer 5

I do not think the provided answer is fully correct. The key issue here is how you use the DB, i.e. how you make DB requests, if you in any way link your code to the client library then you are required to release your project under a license compatible with GPL (i.e. the license compatible with the library you link to), I am not sure how it is when you just use a command line tool, but considering the spirit of GPL it would be the same.

Your situation depends on a technology used, but I believe you would use some kind of html middleware, the license of which would be the key issue here - if apache, then you are free to go on with your closed source project. If you are going to buy a host service for your project, then it is not your problem to worry about the license.