Be Cautious About MySQL Licensing (was Re: Database suggestions?)

[Lynn Fredricks]

> In this discussion, it's important not to lose sight of Chipp 
> Walters' early comment that MySQL is NOT free for commercial 
> use. I was always under the impression that it was but when 
> Chipp raised that with me about 18 months ago and I went to 
> the MySQL folks to investigate, I found a dismayingly 
> confusing plethora of license terms and warnings that frankly 
> scared me away from using the product.

We took a long hard look at real mySQL licensing costs when we came up with
our model. Valentina Embedded Server with unlimited connections is very
price competitive.

Until about two years ago, it seemed like mySQL AB was lawsuit happy -- they
were very aggressive about going after folks who shipped commercial products
and werent paying mySQL's license fees. I couldn't really bring myself to
feel sorry for them because they were riding the tidalwave of the open
source movement -- and a lot of people assume that open source necessarily
means free. But I think they finally figured out that people really could
not figure out their licensing model. Ive sold a lot of different kinds of
software (from "value games" to vertical market 3D apps), and server pricing
has got the be the hardest to work out.

Valentina licensing is fairly complex because we wanted to give our
customers as many options as possible. With our VDN memberships, the "five
connection" version of Embedded Server is royalty free. The unlimited
connection version is quite price competitive with mySQL. Purposefully so
:-)

Best regards,

Lynn Fredricks
President
Proactive International, LLC

- Because it is about who you know.(tm)