Re: Oracle indemnifies PostgreSQL on its patents

<p><font size="2">This may have the nice side effect of pushing 'possibly patented' technologies into the FOSS realm,
butagain I wonder what the duration/persistence of Oracle's committment is?<br /><br /> I think I will ask our lawyers
toreview this.<br /><br /> - Luke<br /><br /> Msg is shrt cuz m on ma treo<br /><br />  -----Original Message-----<br
/>From:   Tom Lane [<a href="mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us">mailto:tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us</a>]<br /> Sent:   Saturday, March 31,
200702:55 PM Eastern Standard Time<br /> To:     Alvaro Herrera<br /> Cc:     Luke Lonergan; Bruce Momjian;
PostgreSQL-development<br/> Subject:        Re: [HACKERS] Oracle indemnifies PostgreSQL on its patents<br /><br />
AlvaroHerrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:<br /> > I would be worried if I were you (or Joshua Drake
forthat matter): does<br /> > the agreement apply to commercial companies deriving products from<br /> >
PostgreSQLas well?<br /><br /> Interesting point.  It's doubtless unwise to take this press release as<br /> being an
accurateguide to the terms of the license, but what it says<br /> is<br /><br /> : According to the terms of the OIN
license,the components covered by<br /> : the agreement include not only the Linux kernel and associated GNU<br /> :
applications,but also other open source projects included in Linux<br /> : distributions.<br /><br /> which to me says
you'recovered as long as your code is commonly<br /> included in Linux distributions.  Hence, proprietary
derivatives<br/> would *not* be covered.  I'd guess that Oracle would have a hard<br /> time suing for any patent
violationembedded in the freely<br /> distributed Postgres code, but any technique appearing only in<br /> the
proprietaryextension would still be at risk.<br /><br /> IANAL, etc.  I assume that EDB and Greenplum will have
their<br/> lawyers scrutinizing this deal on Monday morning ;-) ... I'd<br /> be interested to hear what the experts'
conclusionis.<br /><br />                         regards, tom lane<br /><br /></font>