Date: 2008-04-09 09:26 Subject: OpenOffice.org, MySQL... aren't they both owned by Sun? Security: Public

I have a story for you. Don't fall asleep now - can't promise a happy ending though. There is no ending yet.

Once upon a time... there was OpenOffice.org. Version 2 of this product has a Base product, and the other components (Calc, etc) can also interface with databases through JDBC/ODBC, but the native db interface is something called SDBC which is kinda like a C++ version of JDBC.

A few years back, Georg Richter spent hundreds of hours of his spare time writing a native SDBC driver to connect OpenOffice.org to MySQL, so that it can interface without going through JDBC or ODBC layers. Cool, huh?

Now, what needs to happen is that this code goes into the main OpenOffice.org codebase. That in itself is not a problem, but there's a catch: OpenOffice.org is LGPL licensed. The licensing of the SDBC driver is not an issue, rights can or already have been signed through the Sun contributor license thing. But the MySQL client library, which the SDBC driver uses, is GPL licensed. And so there is a linking problem.

Enter the Sun acquisition of MySQL. Since MySQL owns its code, Sun now owns the client library code. Hmm.

So for StarOffice, it could now link against the MySQL client library and have this native interface operational. I don't think this has been done yet, but it seems like a real obvious and easy advance for these Sun products!

OpenOffice.org is more complicated. Unless Sun/MySQL were to re-license the MySQL client library as LGPL or compatible license (for this type of linking, having an LGPL-licensed app is quirky so the situation is rather unique) it just can't be in there. And MySQL still uses its GPL licensing of the client code as dual licensing business model leverage for some of its revenue. MySQL Sales would be very unhappy if this were changed, although personally I feel that it's old and irrelevant. But letting go of an old and familiar revenue stream can be painful on the brain, I do appreciate that ;-)

How will this story unfold, will there be happy endings and ever-afters? We'll see!