Horton

Thread

  1. Re: [HACKERS] Readline use in trouble?

    Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 1999-10-20T15:57:24Z

    Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
>> That is fine if contrib includes no GPL code; if it does, I need to
>> distribute the code for that portion only.  Thus, if we want to
>> maintain as broad a potential as possible (including non-source
>> distributions) we need to encourage adoption of the BSD license for
>> all source.

> But Alladin Ghostscript is distributed in source form.

But not *only* in source form.  Aladdin make their living by selling
Ghostscript to printer manufacturers and so forth.  The printer makers
are not about to ship out printers with copies of source code, nor
even with notices explaining where to get the printer source code.
If they obtained Ghostscript under GPL then they'd have to make not
only the PS interpreter source available, but probably the entire
firmware for the printer (it's a derived work, no?) and they are
certainly not about to do that.  So they pay Aladdin for the rights
to use Ghostscript with a commercial license instead of GPL.

In the same way, if we distributed Postgres under GPL, it would not be
possible to sell proprietary systems that use Postgres as a component.
That is, in fact, exactly what the GPL is designed to prevent.  But it
doesn't strike me as something we want for Postgres.  We'd be cutting
off too much of the potential "market" of Postgres users.  (Not only
would we lose companies who had an immediate interest in selling
DBMS-based code, but also those who had any thought of possibly doing
so in the future; that could be a lot of people.)

			regards, tom lane

  2. Re: [HACKERS] Readline use in trouble?]

    Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> — 1999-10-20T16:09:04Z

    > Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> >> That is fine if contrib includes no GPL code; if it does, I need to
> >> distribute the code for that portion only.  Thus, if we want to
> >> maintain as broad a potential as possible (including non-source
> >> distributions) we need to encourage adoption of the BSD license for
> >> all source.
> 
> > But Alladin Ghostscript is distributed in source form.
> 
> But not *only* in source form.  Aladdin make their living by selling
> Ghostscript to printer manufacturers and so forth.  The printer makers
> are not about to ship out printers with copies of source code, nor
> even with notices explaining where to get the printer source code.
> If they obtained Ghostscript under GPL then they'd have to make not
> only the PS interpreter source available, but probably the entire
> firmware for the printer (it's a derived work, no?) and they are
> certainly not about to do that.  So they pay Aladdin for the rights
> to use Ghostscript with a commercial license instead of GPL.

Oh, I didn't realize they had a binary-only distribution that was
_different_ from the source distribution.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

  3. Re: [HACKERS] Readline use in trouble?]

    Brook Milligan <brook@biology.nmsu.edu> — 1999-10-20T17:15:43Z

       Oh, I didn't realize they had a binary-only distribution that was
   _different_ from the source distribution.

DIFFERENT is not relevant.  I could today ship a binary verion of
postgresql in its present form as a proprietary product with no source
code.  No license problems arise from doing so.  Allowing GPL code
into the base system causes the problem. 

As just said, this is a good thing from the point of view of
encouraging participation and commercial success.  As long as the open
source version of postgresql remains a well-designed, solid product it
behooves any commercial distributor to aid in its maintenance rather
than take on the whole thing.  Ideally, they will contribute any fixes
they make so that all can benefit and perhaps more importantly so they
don't have to maintain the separate fixes any longer.

Cheers,
Brook

  4. Re: [HACKERS] Readline use in trouble?]

    Bruce Momjian <maillist@candle.pha.pa.us> — 1999-10-20T17:41:04Z

    >    Oh, I didn't realize they had a binary-only distribution that was
>    _different_ from the source distribution.
> 
> DIFFERENT is not relevant.  I could today ship a binary verion of
> postgresql in its present form as a proprietary product with no source
> code.  No license problems arise from doing so.  Allowing GPL code
> into the base system causes the problem. 

Does GPL require the source to be included, or just available for free?


-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  maillist@candle.pha.pa.us            |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

  5. Re: [HACKERS] Readline use in trouble?]

    Brook Milligan <brook@biology.nmsu.edu> — 1999-10-20T17:58:50Z

       Does GPL require the source to be included, or just available for free?

Pretty sure just a pointer to location is good enough.  The catch is
that it has to be the exact version shipped and there is a time limit
(3 years?) for availability, so pointing to the gnu ftp site probably
doesn't work.

Cheers,
Brook

  6. Re: [HACKERS] Readline use in trouble?]

    Oleg Broytmann <phd@phd.russ.ru> — 1999-10-21T07:33:12Z

    On Wed, 20 Oct 1999, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Does GPL require the source to be included, or just available for free?

   Require sources to be available. It is enough to distribute a binary and
provide a pointer to sources. (There are some obscured words that the
pointer should be available for general public...)

Oleg.
---- 
    Oleg Broytmann     http://members.xoom.com/phd2/     phd2@earthling.net
           Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.