Re: contrib and licensing

On Thursday 03 April 2003 00:04, Tom Lane wrote:
> Lamar Owen <lamar.owen@wgcr.org> writes:
> > And its stubs are in the backend, of all places.

> Really?  I must have missed that.

On Linux as compiled in Red Hat 9, at least:
[lowen@localhost lowen]$ ldd /usr/bin/postgres
        libpam.so.0 => /lib/libpam.so.0 (0x4002c000)
        libssl.so.4 => /lib/libssl.so.4 (0x40034000)
        libcrypto.so.4 => /lib/libcrypto.so.4 (0x40069000)
        libkrb5.so.3 => /usr/kerberos/lib/libkrb5.so.3 (0x4015a000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x401b8000)
        libreadline.so.4 => /usr/lib/libreadline.so.4 (0x401c6000)
        libtermcap.so.2 => /lib/libtermcap.so.2 (0x401f3000)
        libcrypt.so.1 => /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x401f7000)
        libresolv.so.2 => /lib/libresolv.so.2 (0x40224000)
        libnsl.so.1 => /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x40236000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4024b000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0x4024e000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0x42000000)
        libcom_err.so.3 => /usr/kerberos/lib/libcom_err.so.3 (0x40271000)
        libgssapi_krb5.so.2 => /usr/kerberos/lib/libgssapi_krb5.so.2 
(0x40273000)
        libk5crypto.so.3 => /usr/kerberos/lib/libk5crypto.so.3 (0x40286000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)
[lowen@localhost lowen]$ /usr/bin/postgres --version
postgres (PostgreSQL) 7.3.2
[lowen@localhost lowen]$

> Certainly, any of this stuff *could* be reimplemented.  But for stuff
> that's being proposed for contrib, what's theoretically possible given
> enough demand isn't the important real-world issue.  Contrib stuff is,
> by definition, stuff that hasn't yet had all that much work put into it.
> So it's appropriate to ask where it can really run *right now*.

FWIW, very few things in contrib use anything beyond libc.  The dblink stuff 
is a notable exception.  It needs an SSL and a Kerberos 5 library.

If the library is reasonably popular (meaning it's in at least one major OS 
distribution, including Debian) then 'what's the harm?'  If the lib isn't 
that popular, then, regardless of license the question 'should something that 
uses it even be here' should be asked.  The issue of a straight GPL library 
is serious for us; a LGPL one less so.
-- 
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11