Bug 681056

Summary:	Postfix links against MySQL in violation of GPL
Product:	Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6	Reporter:	Quanah Gibson-Mount <quanah>
Component:	postfix	Assignee:	Jaroslav Škarvada <jskarvad>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	qe-baseos-daemons
Severity:	urgent	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	6.3	CC:	jskarvad, notting, tcallawa, tgl
Target Milestone:	rc
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Unspecified
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-03-22 20:26:31 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:

Description Quanah Gibson-Mount 2011-02-28 23:39:10 UTC

Description of problem:

Postfix is released under the IBM Public License.  This license is not compatible with the GPL.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:

Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install RHEL6 including postfix package
2. Run ldd on postfix
3.         libmysqlclient.so.16 => /usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.16 (0x00007ff252c1a000)

  
Actual results:

It is linked against mysql libraries

Expected results:

It not be linked against the mysql libraries for legal reasons

Additional info:

While MySQL has a list of licenses it excludes for the MySQL C connector (libmysql), the IBM Public License is not one of those licenses.  Only later licenses from IBM (The CPL and EPL) are excluded.  This means RedHat is in apparent violation of the MySQL licensing terms by linking postfix to it.

Comment 2 RHEL Program Management 2011-02-28 23:57:49 UTC

This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for
inclusion in the current release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Because the affected component is not scheduled to be updated
in the current release, Red Hat is unfortunately unable to
address this request at this time. Red Hat invites you to
ask your support representative to propose this request, if
appropriate and relevant, in the next release of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux. If you would like it considered as an
exception in the current release, please ask your support
representative.

Comment 7 Tom "spot" Callaway 2011-03-22 20:26:31 UTC

The MySQL webpage has been updated to add the IBM Public License 1.0 to the exception list, resolving this concern:

http://www.mysql.com/about/legal/licensing/foss-exception/

Thanks to Wim Coekaerts at Oracle for the quick resolution.

Comment 8 Quanah Gibson-Mount 2011-03-22 23:49:36 UTC

Great news... Now if only you all could convince IBM to update the postfix license from IBM public license to the Eclipse public license.  Then it'd be a perfect world.

--Quanah