I'd have sweared MySQL, but they require your app to be opensource, which cannot be the case here. I'd need a free (or very low-cost) database system, SQL enabled, working on a network and possibly on different platforms. It will be accessed through Java, so an existing Java interface is a definite plus.

Seen a couple that could fit... SQLLite? PostgreSQL? LEAP? Any information is welcome, especially if coming from personal experience. What about the database in StarOffice? Is it decent?

Cheap software is ok, MySQL commercial license is not ok: 500 euro is really a lot for the guy needing this.

> I'd have sweared MySQL, but they require your app to be opensource,

What? MySQL is licensed under the GPL, this in no way requires your application to be open source. If the part of your application that interfaces with MySQL must be open source for one reason or another (implementation-wise) then you can simply write an open source library to interface with MySQL and keep the rest of your application closed.

Any modifications you make to MySQL itself must be redistributed, but you are only using MySQL with your application right? Because if you are simply changing a few things in MySQL and then selling it as your own then I can understand why you cannot do that because of the GPL. But if MySQL is only part of your program, you can close all of your code and simply interface with MySQL and require that MySQL be installed, which is still untouched by your code.

I have made quite a few applications for businesses that required Apache, Perl, Mozilla, and other things. My application did not have to be open source (though it is), because my application was completely seperate from those, even though it required them to be installed to work.

Anyway what are you programming? Maybe I can give you some ideas of how to work with the software licenses.

> > I'd have sweared MySQL, but they require your app to be opensource,
>
> What? MySQL is licensed under the GPL, this in no way requires your application
> to be open source.

You speak wisely. I've just read something I had missed:

Free use for those who never copy, modify or distribute. As long as you never distribute (internally or externally) the MySQL Software in any way, you are free to use it for powering your application, irrespective of whether your application is under GPL license or not.

> But if MySQL is only part
> of your program, you can close all of your code and simply interface with MySQL
> and require that MySQL be installed, which is still untouched by your code.

Right, that's the case, I only need the database to work.

> I have made quite a few applications for businesses that required Apache, Perl,
> Mozilla, and other things. My application did not have to be open source
> (though it is), because my application was completely seperate from those, even
> though it required them to be installed to work.

I think what will be what happens here.

> Anyway what are you programming? Maybe I can give you some ideas of how to work
> with the software licenses.

Actually I am not programming, but your help would be valuable nonetheless.

A person asked some guy to program something for his business, and asked me to see this guy to check the technical side of his work. He'd have had me do the job, but I'm too busy with my thesis. I offered some supervision, though.

The software is about a database accessed from clients on a lan with GDI applications, and maybe via web with applets. We agreed to have everything done in a platform-independent, free-based environment, so that the guy buying the software can switch OS without rewriting everything and spending as little bucks as possible. The programmer is one of those coding machines that just need to be told what to do, so I stepped in. We ended up with MySQL for the database, Java2SE for the program, Apache for the webserver that will host the applet. This way the business guy should have no commercial licence to care about.

Another important point was: the business guy works for a chain that, if the software was good, would buy it and resell it to all the businesses in the chain, and maybe even others. In this perspective, we need the software to be distributable, and paying for other licenses would make it less cheap and thus less interesting. I made my choices with this in mind as well, I guess I'll need to read the license agreements more carefully before the final "go".

The software will surely need to be updated in the future, too, and we wish to be indipendent from the guy writing it now, not because he's bad, but because anyone using it could have to customize some part. So the programmer was asked to sell every right to the source code too, which he agreed. I suggested him to use Eclipse, or another well known IDE, to organize the project, and to document the software with Doxygen, which makes it easier to understand what code does, and he said that was ok.

I'd go into details, but it's damn late now. Maybe later.

That's pretty cool. I would also suggest looking into XUL, as it's a lot less work in creating a client interface that is integrated with the host OS, and you can still use Java2SE to drive the main work on the client side but using XUL would probably save you a lot of work creating and maintaining the interface, plus there is nothing on the client side except Firefox (although it won't look like Firefox), although if you want it is simple to create an XPI that may be downloaded and installed locally, you can have it check for updates and update itself online, etc.

XUL File Manager

XUL Amazon Browser

Fucking cool shit, and it looks native no matter what OS you're running it on (though your app would probably would stand out on a Mac because I'd assume you'd be using conventional Windows application design)