Re: GNU readline and BSD license

Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net> writes:
> Rasmus Lerdorf warned one of you guys that simply linking to GNU
> readline can contaminate code with the GPL.

> Readline isn't LGPL which permits linking without lincense issues,
> it is GPL which means that if you link to it, you must be GPL as
> well.

I do not believe that.  In fact, I'll go further and say "Horsepucky!"
The GPL applies to works that "contain or are derived from" a GPL'd
program.  Linking to a separately distributed library does not cause
psql either to contain or to be derived from libreadline.

If we distributed binary executables that contained statically linked
copies of libreadline, then indeed we'd have a problem.  We do not,
AFAIK, and we have no intention of doing so in the future.

			regards, tom lane