Comments onrecent MySQL announcement

As we know, if you want to distribute MySQL with your application for free, you need to release your application code under GPL, and that’s something that many users doesn’t want to do.

Until now, there was always the option of delivering your application alone, and downloading the MySQL binaries from MySQL site – the license allows this. With the old version binaries not being available for download anymore, many current MySQL customers are in serious trouble, if they want to stay legal.

Of course, there is the option of upgrading the applications to work with the most recent MySQL version, but I presume people needs to be prepared for some compatibility problems. I guess many people out there still uses MySQL 3 and 4 with their software, and wasn’t thinking to move to 5.0 very soon.

For those people, my advice is to check the “Get to know Firebird in two minutes” paper and discover how good, powerful and simple Firebird is. If you have to move to a new MySQL version, maybe it would be better to move to Firebird instead!