Not linking but rather using - auto download OK?

[Charlie Brady]

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, John Hancock wrote:

> I hope that I arrived at the right mailing list. If not, please accept
> my apology and I would appreciate it if you could direct me to the
> correct mailing list (or forum):

You need to speak to your lawyer, who can read and understand the GPL and 
various commentaries concerning it.

> I am an individual programmer, developing a cool software application
> with the hope to make a living selling it over the internet.
>
> The problem is that this application relies on using separate GPL-ed
> software (e.g. MySQL), running in the background.

MySQL libraries in general are not separate programs, but are linked with 
applications.