Hi Scott,
The business model used by widget vendors works poorly for MySQL, as we have a large team of developers to support and we continuously refine the product.
Of course, I can understand your desire to pay a one-time fee that allows you to embed MySQL freely in your products. We have done this in the past, but these licenses are handled on a case by case basis and are expensive.
Regardless of whether or not MySQL is embedded, we have the same approach to our licensing - even if the end use cannot determine that MySQL is included in the product.
Purchasing a proprietary license for a single copy of MySQL costs (as of 2004-08-06) roughly $250 USD (or $500 if you purchase a license for the version of MySQL that includes InnoDB).
Each additional server that you wish to license costs an additional $250 or $500. As more licenses are purchased in a bundle, the cost decreases.
As mentioned previously, we do work to help smaller vendors and individual developers with licensing fees that are better matches for the cost of their application.
(Future readers of this thread, visit
https://order.mysql.com/ for more information on current licensing and support fees.)
Zak Greant
http://zak.greant.com/