This chapter describes MySQL support and licensing arrangements:
The formal terms of the GPL license can be found at section K GNU General Public License. Basically, our licensing policy and intepretation of the GPL is as follows:
Note that older versions of MySQL are still using a more strict license. See the documentation for that version for more information. If you need a commercial MySQL license, because the GPL license doesn't suit your application, you can buy one at https://order.mysql.com/license.htmy.
For normal internal use, MySQL costs nothing. You do not have to pay us if you do not want to.
MySQL and you don't provide the
source code for your copy of the MySQL server, as defined in
the GPL license.
GNU Library General Public License. The mysql command
line client includes code from the readline library that is under
the GPL.
For circumstances under which a MySQL license is required, you
need a license per machine that runs the mysqld server. However,
a multiple-CPU machine counts as a single machine, and there is no
restriction on the number of MySQL servers that run on one
machine, or on the number of clients concurrently connected to a server
running on that machine!
If you have any questions as to whether or not a license is required for your particular use of MySQL, please read this again and then contact us. See section 3.6.2 Contact information.
If you require a MySQL license, the easiest way to pay for it is to use the license form on MySQL's secure server at https://order.mysql.com/license.htmy. Other forms of payment are discussed in section 3.6.1 Payment information.
There are several different copyrights on the MySQL distribution:
mysqlclient library is licensed under the LGPL and
programs in the `client' directory is GPL. Each file has a header
that shows which copyright is used for that file.
getopt) library are covered
by the ``GNU LIBRARY LIBRARY GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE''.
regexp library) are covered
by a Berkeley style copyright.
readline) library
is covered by the ``GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE''. See section K GNU General Public License. This is also available as the file `COPYING' in the
distributions.
One goal with this is that the SQL client library should be free enough so that it is possible to add MySQL support in commercial products without any license. So in this case we choose the LGPL license.
This means that you can use MySQL for free with any program that uses any of the free software licences. MySQL is also free for any end user for his own/company usage.
But if you use MySQL for something important to you, you may want to help secure its development by purchasing licenses or a support contract, section 3.7 Types of commercial support.
The stable versions are of MySQL are still using a more strict license. See the documatation for that version for more information.
This section describes some situations illustrating whether or not you must license the MySQL server. Generally these examples involve providing MySQL as a integrated part of a product.
Note that a single MySQL license covers any number of CPUs and
mysqld servers on a machine! It also has not limit on the number
of clients that connect to one server in any way.
To determine whether or not you need a MySQL license when selling your application, you should ask whether the proper functioning of your application is depentent on the use of MySQL and whether you include the MySQL server with your product. There are several cases to consider:
mysqld server. For example, if you've
designed your application around MySQL, then you've really made
a commercial product that requires the engine, so you need a license.
If your application does not require MySQL, you need not obtain
a license. For example, if MySQL just added some new optional
features to your product (such as adding logging to a database if
MySQL is used rather than logging to a text file), it should
fall within normal use, and a license would not be required.
In other words, you need a license if you sell a product designed
specifically for use with MySQL or that requires the
MySQL server to function at all. This is true whether or not
you provide MySQL for your client as part of your product
distribution.
It also depends on what you're doing for the client. Do you plan to
provide your client with detailed instructions on installing
MySQL with your software? Then your product may be contingent
on the use of MySQL; if so, you need to buy a license. If you
are simply tying into a database that you expect already to have been
installed by the time your software is purchased, then you probably
don't need a license.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) often host MySQL servers for their customers. With the GPL license this does not require a license.
On the other hand, we do encourage people to use ISP:s that has MySQL support as this will give them the confidence that if they get some problem with their MySQL installation, their ISP will be able to solve the problem for them (in some cases with the help from the MySQL development team).
All ISPs that wants to keep themself up to date should subscribe
to our announce mailing list so that they can be aware of fatal issues
that may be relevant for their MySQL installations.
Note that if the ISP doesn't have a license for MySQL,
they should give their customers at least read access to the source of
the MySQL installation so that their customer can verify that
it's patched correctly.
If you use MySQL in conjunction with a web server on Unix, you don't have to pay for a license.
This is true even if you run a commercial web server that uses MySQL, because you are not selling an embedded MySQL version yourself. However, in this case we would like you to purchase MySQL support, because MySQL is helping your enterprise.
Our current license prices are shown below. These prices are now under review because of the change to a GPL copyright. New prices and terms will be posted on the MySQL web site http://www.mysql.com/ as soon as they are ready.
All prices are in US Dollars. If you pay by credit card, the currency is EURO (European Union Euro) so the prices will differ slightly.
| Number of licenses | Price per copy | Total |
| 1 | US $200 | US $200 |
| 10 pack | US $150 | US $1500 |
| 50 pack | US $120 | US $6000 |
For high volume (OEM) purchases, the following prices apply:
| Number of licenses | Price per copy | Minimum at one time | Minimum payment |
| 100-999 | US $40 | 100 | US $4000 |
| 1000-2499 | US $25 | 200 | US $5000 |
| 2500-4999 | US $20 | 400 | US $8000 |
For OEM purchases, you must act as the middle-man for eventual problems or extension requests from your users. We also require that OEM customers have at least an extended email support contract. Note that OEM licenses only apply for products where the user doesn't have direct access to the MySQL server (embedded system). In other words: The MySQL server should only be used with the application that was supplied you.
If you have a low-margin high-volume product, you can always talk to us about other terms (for example, a percent of the sale price). If you do, please be informative about your product, pricing, market and any other information that may be relevant.
A full-price license is not a support agreement and includes very minimal support. This means that we try to answer any relevant question. If the answer is in the documentation, we will direct you to the appropriate section. If you have not purchased a license or support, we probably will not answer at all.
If you discover what we consider a real bug, we are likely to fix it in any case. But if you pay for support we will notify you about the fix status instead of just fixing it in a later release.
More comprehensive support is sold separately. Descriptions of what each level of support includes are given in section 3.7 Types of commercial support. Costs for the various types of commercial support are shown below. Support level prices are in EURO (European Union Euro). One EURO is about 1.17 USD.
| Type of support | Cost per year |
| Basic email support | EURO 170 |
| Extended email support | EURO 1000 |
| Login support | EURO 2000 |
| Extended login support | EURO 5000 |
You may upgrade from any lower level of support to a higher level of support for the difference between the prices of the two support levels.
Currently we can take SWIFT payments, cheques or credit cards.
Payment should be made to:
Postgirot Bank AB 105 06 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN TCX DataKonsult AB BOX 6434 11382 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN SWIFT address: PGSI SESS Account number: 96 77 06 - 3
Specify: license and/or support and your name and email address.
In Europe and Japan you can use EuroGiro (that should be less expensive) to the same account.
If you want to pay by cheque, make it payable to ``MySQL Finland AB'' and mail it to the address below:
TCX DataKonsult AB BOX 6434, Torsgatan 21 11382 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
If you want to pay by credit card over the Internet, you can use TcX's secure license form.
You can also print a copy of the license form, fill it in and send it by fax to:
+46-8-729 69 05
If you want us to bill you, you can use the license form and write ``bill us'' in the comment field. You can also mail a message to sales@mysql.com (not mysql@lists.mysql.com!) with your company information and ask us to bill you.
For commercial licensing, or if you have any questions about any of the information in this section, please contact the MySQL licensing team. The much preferred method is by E-Mail to mysql-licensing@mysql.com. Fax is also possible but handling of these may take much longer (Fax +46-8-729 69 05).
David Axmark Detron HB Kungsgatan 65 B 753 21 UPPSALA SWEDEN Voice Phone +46-18-10 22 80 (Timezone GMT+1. Swedish and English spoken)
Basic email support is a very inexpensive support option and should be thought of more as a way to support our development of MySQL than as a real support option. We at MySQL do give a lot of free support in all the different MySQL lists and the money we get from basic eamil support is largely used to make this possible.
At this support level, the MySQL mailing lists are the preferred means of communication. Questions normally should be mailed to the primary mailing list (mysql@lists.mysql.com) or one of the other regular lists (for example, mysql-win32@lists.mysql.com for Windows-related MySQL questions), as someone else already may have experienced and solved the problem you have. See section 2.2 Asking questions or reporting bugs.
However, by purchasing basic email support, you also have access to the support address mysql-support@mysql.com, which is not available as part of the minimal support that you get by purchasing a MySQL license. This means that for especially critical questions, you can cross-post your message to mysql-support@mysql.com. (If the message contains sensitive data, you should post only to mysql-support@mysql.com.)
REMEMBER! to ALWAYS include your registration number and expiration date when you send a message to mysql-support@mysql.com.
Note that if you have encountered a critical repeatable bug and follow the rules outlined in the manual section of how to report bugs and send it to bugs@lists.mysql.com we promise to try to fix this as soon as possible, independent of your support level! See section 2.3 How to report bugs or problems.
Basic email support includes the following types of service:
myisampack packing tool for
creating fast compressed read-only databases. The current server includes
support for reading such databases but not the packing tool used to
create them.
Extended email support includes everything in basic email support with these additions:
mysqld for your situation.
Login support includes everything in extended email support with these additions:
kill -9 command).
Extended login support includes everything in login support with these additions:
mysql> select MY_FUNC(col1,col2) from table;
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.