Once upon a time, Gene Heskett gene.heskett@verizon.net said:
MySQL changed the license a wee bit, it now clashes with the GPL, so the new stuff isn't being considered free enough to distribute by any of the linux players with legal staff to advise them.
Bzzt - MySQL changed the _library_ license _to_ the GPL (the server was already under the GPL, while the library was under the LGPL).
The problem with that is that some of the things that link against the library are under licenses that are not GPL compatible (like PHP), so with the newer versions of MySQL, you end up building something that can't be distributed.
There has been talk of changing the MySQL client library license again, so that this would be resolved, but they haven't actually shipped any code under such a modified license (at least last time I looked).