The MySQL
database is released under the
GNU General Public License
(GPL
).
This means that the MySQL
software can be used free of charge
under the GPL
. If you do not want to be bound by the GPL
terms (such as the requirement that your application must also be GPL
,
you may purchase a commercial license for the same product
from MySQL AB
; see http://www.mysql.com/products/pricing.html.
Since MySQL AB
owns the copyright to the MySQL
source code,
we are able to employ Dual Licensing
, which means that the same
product is available under GPL
and under a commercial
license. This does not in any way affect the Open Source
commitment of MySQL AB
. For details about when a commercial
license is required, please see section 1.4.3 MySQL Licenses.
We also sell commercial licenses of third-party Open Source GPL
software that adds value to MySQL Server
. A good example is the
InnoDB
transactional storage engine that offers ACID
support, row-level locking, crash recovery, multi-versioning, foreign
key support, and more. See section 7.5 InnoDB
Tables.