[mythtv-users] Using Microsoft Access as a front-end to the MythTV database: HOWTO
David Segall
david at segall.net
Thu Jul 26 15:40:32 UTC 2007
Richard Freeman wrote:
> David Segall wrote:
>> Unlike Linux and other GPL software which uses the LGPL for required
>> libraries, MySQL uses the GPL. The JDBC and ODBC drivers are licensed
>> under the GPL so MySQL can claim that any program that incorporates
>> their libraries is a derived work and must therefore be open source. It
>> just happens that they have a license that they will sell you if you
>> cannot open source your program.
>
> None of this is really an issue for Myth as it uses the GPL. I'm sure
> that if somebody came up with something like ODBC that could be applied
> to linux software in general (and that wasn't tied to a single language
> like JDBC) and it became a standard then you'd see more plug-and-play DB
> solutions for linux. Unfortunately, right now everybody uses
> DB-specific libraries to access their databases and nobody wants to
> rewrite their software to support somebody's favorite RDBMS. As a
> result the network effect pretty-much guarantees that MySQL will be with
> us for a long time - nobody wants to run two DBs on their server if they
> can help it...
I don't disagree with anything you have said but what happens in the,
not unlikely, event that the negotiators at Schedules Direct
<http://www.schedulesdirect.org/> conclude that a fifty dollar closed
source program is the solution to paying for the U.S. TV program guides.
There are other scenarios in which a MythTV user may want to use a
closed source program to access the MythTV database including using
Microsoft Access as described in my original post :)
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