User:Karaken12/OpenQM

OpenQM is an open source multivalued database system.

In date Ladybridge Systems released under the GPL the source code for their multivalue database QM, under the name OpenQM. While QM is available for several formats, OpenQM is currently only available for Linux; however, users are free to port the system to any other operating system, and there are reports of users running on a variety of OSes.

Open Source Issues
There have been heated debates on the OpenQM mailing lists with regards to what the GPL means in the OpenQM context. Ladybridge Systems (and Martin Phillips in particular) believes that the GPL covers any program created using OpenQM, citing the fact that any compiled program would require GPL covered code in order to run. Opponents to this view point out that code compiled with a GPL compiler is not covered by the GPL, and that if a program requiring GPL code to run must be GPLed, then all programs running under Linux must also be covered under the GPL. This is an ongoing debate among the open source community; see GPL-related disputes for more information. To date the debates have centred on general senarios or situations where the code should be released under the GPL anyway, and a generous developer's licence serves to deter people from releasing closed-source programs coded under OpenQM.

Clarification of GPL Scenario
The "position" of Ladybridge system is not that an application program is under the GPL because it is compiled by OpenQM, but that it is under the GPL because it links to OpenQM as a run-time library. The gcc compiler example does not apply. When you compile a standard C application, the compilation does not GPL the application. If you were then to link the application (either a static or dynamic link) to a GPL run-time library, then the GPL would apply to the entire application. This is exactly how MySQL enforces it's GPL license by shipping it's client library under the GPL. Regardless, this has not really turned out to be much of an issue. Commercial QM licenses are fair, reasonably priced, and avoid this issue entirely. DougDumitru