Re: [pgsql-www] Software Patents

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Jean-Paul Argudo wrote:
>> I really feel sad and sorry to read here it was really problematic for US part
>> of PostgreSQL project, I felt like the PostgreSQL project was more American
>> than International then, since American issues on that topic overrided others
>> arguments.
>
> I don't see this as an international vs. USA issue at all.  If anything,
> I am embarrassed by the USA in this area.

One thing to note ... with ppl like Fujitsu and Greenplum doing
"extensions" to PostgreSQL and re-releasing it, how many of those
extensions are patent'd?  In Greenplum's case, I believe that they do
intend on having some patent'd stuff added to their code base, but it
won't carry over to ours ...

Our goal should be (I think) to be "patent free" when we know about
patents, just like we did with IBM/ARC ... if we started to become
"anti-patents", though, how would that reflect on those like
Fujitsu/GreenPlum?  In Fujitsu's case, they have definitely done *alot* to
advance some very large/key features in PostgreSQL, but do we cast a
shadow across the project by taking an 'anti-patent' stance when one of
our major contributors most probably has *several*?

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664