Re: Licensing question

Andy,

Again, IANAL...

On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 01:00:35PM +0300, Antti Oikarinen wrote:
> if i deploy PostgreSQL with a commercial application, using Cygwin for
> PostgreSQL, do i need to purchase a license or should my application
> comply to Open Source specification? Can i avoid the need to purchase a
> license or to go Open Source by, for example, launching Cygwin and
> PostgreSQL as services, without any contact between my application and
> Cygwin, only connecting to PostgreSQL through JDBC?

Yes, this is exactly what we were going to do with a product from
my previous employer.  Unfortunately, there was downsizing, so the
product never saw the light of day.  Nevertheless, I believe that we
would have been fully complying with the licensing requirements.

> Cygwin home pages are unfortunately very obscure when it comes to
> licensing (and they aren't replying to questions on the subject...). In
> many places it says it's GPL, but from elsewhere in the site you get a
> very different picture. I asked an expert and even he couldn't come up
> with a certain answer right away. I found these two messages from these
> archives:
>
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00118.php
> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00119.php

I can't say much more than the above -- just provide the required source
(i.e., Cygwin, PostgreSQL, etc.) which is *not* your application source
in this case.

> .. and these look very promising. However, i'd be grateful for any more
> detailed information on the subject and the conclusion. When it comes to
> licenses, one can't be too careful :)

Agreed!

Jason