Re: [HACKERS] Re: Postgresql Docs....

"Aaron J. Seigo" wrote:
> > How about simply "BSD licensed?"
> 
> traditional "BSD Liscences" have that silly advertising
> clause.. which postgres does as well, unfortunately... quite honestly, i find
> that irritating and antiquated. *shrug* not like the regents are exactly doing
> anything important w/postgres now, right? and for all the shouting of "its
> TRULY free", there are string attatched...

There are always strings attached.  The BSD license has the fewest
strings short of fully public domain.

> Domain/GPL/blahblahblah) we should be looking more importantly at which rights
> we want to secure and which we don't really care about.

That has already been done -- PostgreSQL still has Berkeley code in it,
and therefore HAS TO BE BSD licensed -- if the license terms are to be
changed (which is not likely to happen), Berkeley code will have to be
eradicated -- which is also not likely to happen.

[snip]

The point is this: the license is not changing (unless ALL contributors
past and present agree to it).  I just stated the fact of what license
it is. 

There is really no use in discussing what license to put PostgreSQL
under, as it is already under one.  That means that there is absolutely
no obligation on anyone who uses the software to give back to the
community -- in fact, if they want to take PostgreSQL, rename it, and
sell it, they are free to do so -- and they don't have to give anything
back.  In fact, the original Postgres had this very thing happen -- the
commercial database Illustra was the result, and that got swallowed by
Informix.  PostgreSQL lives -- Illustra is dead.  Long live PostgreSQL!

--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio