Revised Copyright: is this more palatable?

At 11:42 4/07/00 -0300, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

The only part that I believe at least one person had an issue with was:

"Any person who contributes or submits any modification or other change to
the PostgreSQL software or documentation grants irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide permission, without charge, to use, copy, further
modify and distribute the same under the terms of this license."

Quite frankly, all I'm reading into this paragraph is that once committed,
Jan (as a recent example) couldn't come along and pull out all his TOAST
changes ... could you imagine the hell that would wreak were he (or anyone
else) were to pull crucial changes after others have built upon it?

I am (still) waiting to hear from my IP lawyer, but it is my understanding
that if Jan puts TOAST into CVS, then he has given an implied license for
use to use it in the open source project. As a result I doubt he could
actually force it's removal. What he could do is stop a third party from
using it in another product. This does not seem bad to me.

Unfortunately, with your revised clause, he no longer has that right.

Why not just leave the clause out? The more you diverge from BSD, the more
you make me want GPL.

The only change in this is the "Juristiction" para is removed ... I've
read this over several times now, and personal feel that all its doing is
extending the existing copyright to cover *ALL* developers, and not just
the "UNIVERITY OF CALIFORNIA" ones ...

It's reducing the rights of developers.

I consider it an appendum to the existing copyright ... I don't know, does
that make it any less BSD/open?

I think it does; but I'd be open to any reason why I as a developer should
feel stronger as a result of your suggested clause.

Certainly if I were a private company who wanted to use PG, I would feel
more comfortable with this clause, but that is not how you are marketing it.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

Okay, from seeing the responses so far on the list, I'm not the only one
that has issues with the whole "juristiction of virginia" issue *or* the
"slam this copyright in ppls faces" ... I do like the part in BOLD about
"ANY DEVELOPER" instead of just the "UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA" ... but I
consider that an appendum/extension of what is already stated ...

Is the following more palatable to those of us that aren't US citizens?

The only part that I believe at least one person had an issue with was:

"Any person who contributes or submits any modification or other change to
the PostgreSQL software or documentation grants irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide permission, without charge, to use, copy, further
modify and distribute the same under the terms of this license."

Quite frankly, all I'm reading into this paragraph is that once committed,
Jan (as a recent example) couldn't come along and pull out all his TOAST
changes ... could you imagine the hell that would wreak were he (or anyone
else) were to pull crucial changes after others have built upon it?

The new license should clearly make it impossible to later
pull out things again. To stay with me as example, what would
happen if I take out PL/pgSQL, FOREIGN KEY (not all mine I
know), the fixes to the rewriter and so on. They all where
contributed under the old license, so I still hold the
copyright on 'em - don't I. Can a new license change the
legal state of previous contributions? I don't think so. What
do we have to do to reversely apply this "irrevocable" term
to all so far done contributions?

And some words to all the people who think GPL is better.
IMHO it is a kind of Open Source Fashism. Forcing everything
that uses a little snippet of open code to be open too
doesn't have anything to do with free software. There are a
couple of things Open Source can never offer. For example a
native DB-link interface between a Postgres DB and a
commercial one might require NDA to get internals. Surely a
useful thing that must be a closed source product, so what
would it be good for to make it's development impossible?

If someone needs a feature and is willing to pay alot money
to get it right now, why shouldn't a company or some
individual grab it and implement the feature. At some point,
those will learn that it is a good idea to contribute these
things to the free source too, because they'll get rid of
most maintainence efford and gain that future development on
our side doesn't collide with what they're responsible for.
It's so obvious to me that I don't need a license that
enforces it from the very first second.

Jan

--

#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Philip Warner wrote:

At 11:42 4/07/00 -0300, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

The only part that I believe at least one person had an issue with was:

"Any person who contributes or submits any modification or other change to
the PostgreSQL software or documentation grants irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide permission, without charge, to use, copy, further
modify and distribute the same under the terms of this license."

Quite frankly, all I'm reading into this paragraph is that once committed,
Jan (as a recent example) couldn't come along and pull out all his TOAST
changes ... could you imagine the hell that would wreak were he (or anyone
else) were to pull crucial changes after others have built upon it?

I am (still) waiting to hear from my IP lawyer, but it is my understanding
that if Jan puts TOAST into CVS, then he has given an implied license for
use to use it in the open source project. As a result I doubt he could
actually force it's removal. What he could do is stop a third party from
using it in another product. This does not seem bad to me.

Unfortunately, with your revised clause, he no longer has that right.

Why not just leave the clause out? The more you diverge from BSD, the more
you make me want GPL.

The only change in this is the "Juristiction" para is removed ... I've
read this over several times now, and personal feel that all its doing is
extending the existing copyright to cover *ALL* developers, and not just
the "UNIVERITY OF CALIFORNIA" ones ...

It's reducing the rights of developers.

I consider it an appendum to the existing copyright ... I don't know, does
that make it any less BSD/open?

I think it does; but I'd be open to any reason why I as a developer should
feel stronger as a result of your suggested clause.

Certainly if I were a private company who wanted to use PG, I would feel
more comfortable with this clause, but that is not how you are marketing it.

Wait ... you had me on the first section, but this second one does confuse
me ... "reducing the rights of developers" applies to the "Any person who
contributes..." clause, or the BOLD liability clauses?

I'm definitely not sold on the "Any person who contributes or submits any
modification..." clause, and *if* your IP lawyer comes back that your
understanding is accurate, I'm even less sold on it ... look forward to
hearing back on that ...

For me, the only thing that I really like is the three extra BOLD paras
that extend the protection from liability to encompass ALL DEVELOPERS
instead of just "UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA", which I don't believe any of
us falls under? :)

On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, Jan Wieck wrote:

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

Okay, from seeing the responses so far on the list, I'm not the only one
that has issues with the whole "juristiction of virginia" issue *or* the
"slam this copyright in ppls faces" ... I do like the part in BOLD about
"ANY DEVELOPER" instead of just the "UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA" ... but I
consider that an appendum/extension of what is already stated ...

Is the following more palatable to those of us that aren't US citizens?

The only part that I believe at least one person had an issue with was:

"Any person who contributes or submits any modification or other change to
the PostgreSQL software or documentation grants irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide permission, without charge, to use, copy, further
modify and distribute the same under the terms of this license."

Quite frankly, all I'm reading into this paragraph is that once committed,
Jan (as a recent example) couldn't come along and pull out all his TOAST
changes ... could you imagine the hell that would wreak were he (or anyone
else) were to pull crucial changes after others have built upon it?

The new license should clearly make it impossible to later
pull out things again. To stay with me as example, what would
happen if I take out PL/pgSQL, FOREIGN KEY (not all mine I
know), the fixes to the rewriter and so on. They all where
contributed under the old license, so I still hold the
copyright on 'em - don't I. Can a new license change the
legal state of previous contributions? I don't think so. What
do we have to do to reversely apply this "irrevocable" term
to all so far done contributions?

And some words to all the people who think GPL is better.
IMHO it is a kind of Open Source Fashism. Forcing everything
that uses a little snippet of open code to be open too
doesn't have anything to do with free software. There are a
couple of things Open Source can never offer. For example a
native DB-link interface between a Postgres DB and a
commercial one might require NDA to get internals. Surely a
useful thing that must be a closed source product, so what
would it be good for to make it's development impossible?

If someone needs a feature and is willing to pay alot money
to get it right now, why shouldn't a company or some
individual grab it and implement the feature. At some point,
those will learn that it is a good idea to contribute these
things to the free source too, because they'll get rid of
most maintainence efford and gain that future development on
our side doesn't collide with what they're responsible for.
It's so obvious to me that I don't need a license that
enforces it from the very first second.

So you are in the "make no changes to existing license" camp? Or just
against that one para above?

Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: scrappy@hub.org secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

On Tue, Jul 04, 2000 at 05:51:14PM +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:

The new license should clearly make it impossible to later
pull out things again.

I'm confused about this. I'm not a coder, so I beg forgiveness for my
intrusion, but how would it be possible to revoke the license on code once
contributed?

If I distribute something under terms t(1), and then later distribute the
same thing under terms t(2), even if terms t(2) revoke terms t(1), I can't
go back and get the original distribution back.

Now, in the case of something easily distributed (like code), if terms t(1)
allow free distribution, then all one needs is to argue that one is copying
that original distribution. Am I missing something?

Because of the above, it seems to me that once some copyrighted work has
been opened, it can't be closed again. Future developments by the original
copyright owner can, of course, include the original copyrightedwork under
different terms. But even the original copyright owner can't go back and
change the license forsomething in the past, no?

-- 
Andrew Sullivan                                      Computer Services
<sullivana@bpl.on.ca>                        Burlington Public Library
+1 905 639 3611 x158                                   2331 New Street
                                   Burlington, Ontario, Canada L7R 1J4

On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, Andrew Sullivan wrote:

On Tue, Jul 04, 2000 at 05:51:14PM +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:

The new license should clearly make it impossible to later
pull out things again.

I'm confused about this. I'm not a coder, so I beg forgiveness for my
intrusion, but how would it be possible to revoke the license on code once
contributed?

If I distribute something under terms t(1), and then later distribute the
same thing under terms t(2), even if terms t(2) revoke terms t(1), I can't
go back and get the original distribution back.

Now, in the case of something easily distributed (like code), if terms t(1)
allow free distribution, then all one needs is to argue that one is copying
that original distribution. Am I missing something?

Because of the above, it seems to me that once some copyrighted work has
been opened, it can't be closed again. Future developments by the original
copyright owner can, of course, include the original copyrightedwork under
different terms. But even the original copyright owner can't go back and
change the license forsomething in the past, no?

To the best of *my* knowledge, a copyright cannot be retro-actively
imposed on software ... but, I'm not a copyright lawyer, so may be wrong
on this ...

I *believe* what Jan was getting at was that the copyright should be made
such that, as our example has gone so far, if his TOAST contribution falls
under said copyright, he can't, at some later date, decide to pull *his*
code out of the tree ... but, it only works "from that day forward", not
retro-actively on any previous code he's submitted ...

Hi:

Several people have complained about forking from the BSD license. If the
BSD license is so flawed, why not open the discussion to FreeBSD and other
BSD license users. If the license truely is flawed, it can be "fixed" for
all. Then no one can claim: 1) a PostgreSQL fork, 2) kow tow to corporate
interests.

People joining this discussion have varying levels of legal knowledge. It
seems that some clarification by a legal expert on many of these issues is
needed. And knowing the variability of "expertise" in the legal profession,
and the importance of the issue, I'd recommend a second or third opinion
(opening the discusion as above could help with this).

John

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

So you are in the "make no changes to existing license" camp? Or just
against that one para above?

My home is my castle - since I where in the army I don't like
camps any more :-)

All I want is to be safe against beeing sued for something I
did for free, available for nothing on an AS IS base.

The aspect of "this license permits to make it proprietary"
is IMHO weakened by itself. More and more companies see the
benefits of going open source (getting high experienced
programming and maintainence for free) as the Mozilla,
Interbase and other examples demonstrate.

I started with individual software development on the
customer side. The next step was standard software, to
reduce development costs. Now we are at the beginning of the
next wave, open source. Again reducing development costs. The
closed shop companies will be the loosers in the long run, I
believe. So my focus isn't really on keeping open what once
became open - that'll take care for itself because someone
will be there taking the last open version and continue from
that.

My focus is on beeing protected. And I'm not sure if beeing
bound to any US States law is a good choice for that.

Jan

--

#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me. #
#================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #

The only part that I believe at least one person had an issue with was:

"Any person who contributes or submits any modification or other change
to the PostgreSQL software or documentation grants irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide permission, without charge, to use, copy,
further modify and distribute the same under the terms of this license."

Quite frankly, all I'm reading into this paragraph is that once
committed, Jan (as a recent example) couldn't come along and pull out all
his TOAST changes ... could you imagine the hell that would wreak were he
(or anyone else) were to pull crucial changes after others have built
upon it?

A problem I see here is that "contributes or submits" is not defined. I
presume that what is probably intended is something like "submits to the
CVS repository or the patches mailing list of the PostgreSQL project".
Otherwise the term has no meaning. However, this would require some
definition of "PostgreSQL project", and IMHO any such definition would be
a Bad Thing. I suggest it is better for PostgreSQL, the software, to stand
alone as the entity distributed. The fact that a "project" exists to
maintain and develop it should not figure in the licence. Otherwise, to
pick an extreme example, suppose Oracle makes all the core developers an
offer too good to refuse, and someone else is left to pick up the pieces
and fork the project to keep it open. What rights does this forked project
have in the scheme of things? What terms apply to someone who submits
patches to this new project?

For that matter, suppose someone forks the project for other reasons; the
current licence gives anyone the right to do this at any time. With this
new suggested clause, the right to fork becomes murky. Forking is a Bad
Thing in general, but having the right to fork a project is the only
guarantee that the software will always be open.

Now one thing that might be sensible is to adopt a policy of only
accepting patches or cvs checkins that are provided irrevocably under the
terms of the PostgreSQL licence. But that is a policy for the PostgreSQL
project to adopt, not a term of the licence for redistribution of the
PostgreSQL software.

Tim

--
-----------------------------------------------
Tim Allen tim@proximity.com.au
Proximity Pty Ltd http://www.proximity.com.au/
http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/rita_tim/

The Hermit Hacker writes:

Is the following more palatable to those of us that aren't US citizens?

Is it really necessary that the developers' DISCLAIMER is different in
wording than the UCB DISCLAIMER? Is there any deeper thought behind it? If
not, I humbly suggest using the same text.

The only part that I believe at least one person had an issue with was:

"Any person who contributes or submits any modification or other change to
the PostgreSQL software or documentation grants irrevocable,
non-exclusive, worldwide permission, without charge, to use, copy, further
modify and distribute the same under the terms of this license."

There is certainly a point behind this. But this point essentially applies
to all open source projects, even GPL'ed ones. Is there an implicit grant
of license when you submit patches? If we feel that this issue needs to be
addressed then we should involve the open source community at large, not
move ahead by ourselves. Ask the Open Source Initiative, Software in the
Public Interest, the FSF, other large scale projects (FreeBSD), other
commercial entities, such as RedHat. You just can't sneak in this sort of
new language without anyone noticing.

There are also particular issues I have with the wording. What's a
"contribution"? One could interpret that any modification to PostgreSQL
that you make available to the public at large is a contribution. That
would make re-publishing PostgreSQL under a different license impossible.

It would also be quite tricky to enforce this change. Consider this: All
of the current code is under the current license, you can't change that.
Therefore, anyone who contributes changes to the *current* code is not
bound by this *new* license; only truly *new* code is bound by the new
license. But if it's truly new code then it does not constitute a
"modification or other change". So this license could never take effect
unless the all the authors of the exiting code explicitly agree that all
of their old code is now under the new license. That's not going to
happen.

Yes, I'm language lawyering. But the fact that such interpretations are
possible makes me uneasy.

I consider it an appendum to the existing copyright ... I don't know, does
that make it any less BSD/open?

s/copyright/license/

The _copyright_ is held by the entity who wrote the code, the _license_
are the conditions under which he makes them available to the rest of the
world. This also makes the current wording "Portions Copyright ...
PostgreSQL, Inc." kind of questionable.

And yes, IMHO any change to the BSD license makes it less BSD.

--
Peter Eisentraut Sernanders v�g 10:115
peter_e@gmx.net 75262 Uppsala
http://yi.org/peter-e/ Sweden

Tim Allen wrote:

Now one thing that might be sensible is to adopt a policy of only
accepting patches or cvs checkins that are provided irrevocably under the
terms of the PostgreSQL licence. But that is a policy for the PostgreSQL
project to adopt, not a term of the licence for redistribution of the
PostgreSQL software.

That's exactly right.

Firstly I don't believe there is an issue here. There is an implied
licence for patches.

But if there is any doubt it is the project's responsibility to ensure
that code that is accepted is under the right licence. If that means
patches are submitted with the appropriate licence so be it.

If find it somewhat doubtful also that putting this clause into the
copyright would have the desired effect. The clause effectively says
"Whatever patches you make available - well we have a licence whether
you like it or not". I can't see a court enforcing this. Either the
licence is implied by merely submitting it to the existing project by
common law, or the writer explicitely grants the licence. Trying to grab
the licence from the other party just by name it and claim it, I can't
see it working.

At 01:09 5/07/00 +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:

So my focus isn't really on keeping open what once
became open - that'll take care for itself because someone
will be there taking the last open version and continue from
that.

This is called 'faith', and is commendable, but I'm and old testament sort
of person - a few thunderbolts never go amiss!

I truly hope you are right, and that the result of Software Manufacturers
Vs. The Hackers is not the destruction of open source software through
extensive legal battles and intense self-interest.

Am I correct in saying that you agree that the GPL is where we should be,
but you want people to go there of their own free will?

My focus is on beeing protected. And I'm not sure if beeing
bound to any US States law is a good choice for that.

I think it's a bad idea.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/

Philip Warner wrote:

At 01:09 5/07/00 +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:

So my focus isn't really on keeping open what once
became open - that'll take care for itself because someone
will be there taking the last open version and continue from
that.

This is called 'faith', and is commendable, but I'm and old testament sort
of person - a few thunderbolts never go amiss!

I truly hope you are right, and that the result of Software Manufacturers
Vs. The Hackers is not the destruction of open source software through
extensive legal battles and intense self-interest.

Am I correct in saying that you agree that the GPL is where we should be,
but you want people to go there of their own free will?

Why do you continue to insist that GPL is superior to BSD? GPL is
BSD *with restrictions*. If someone comes along and sweeps up the
major developers:

A) Good for the major developers - they deserve to have large
sums of cash thrown their way, particularly for many of them who
have been working on this *for years*

B) The moment it happens, the project forks and another "Marc"
out-there offers to host development on his machine and the
process begins again. PostgreSQL exists despite Illustra's
existence.

This is not something new. SunOS, AIX, HPUX, etc. all have (at
one time or another) considerable BSD roots. And yet FreeBSD
still exists... All GPL does is 'poison' the pot by prohibiting
commercial spawns which may leverage the code. If someone makes
some money selling CommercialGres by integrating replication,
distributive, and parallel query, good for them.

Mike Mascari

At 13:04 4/07/00 -0300, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

Certainly if I were a private company who wanted to use PG, I would feel
more comfortable with this clause, but that is not how you are marketing

it.

Wait ... you had me on the first section, but this second one does confuse
me ... "reducing the rights of developers" applies to the "Any person who
contributes..." clause, or the BOLD liability clauses?

It was meant to apply to "Any person who...", but based on legal advice, I
was a little wrong. Assuming I could be reasonably expected to be aware of
the BSD nature of the project, and the terms of the BSD license, then by
making a submission, my submission comes under the BSD.

I do still own copyright, but I can't prevent people using it in a
PG-derived project. But I *can* prevent them using it in software to run a
meat-grinder, assuming that software is not recognizably a PG derived
database (as perceived by a reasonable person). This could be relevant to
Jan who wrote compression code, although I suspect he's philosophically
opposed to preventing his actual source code being used in, eg, "The New
Fangled Microsoft Disk Compressor, using advanced Compression Technology
(tm)".

The new clause removes this right.

I'm definitely not sold on the "Any person who contributes or submits any
modification..." clause, and *if* your IP lawyer comes back that your
understanding is accurate, I'm even less sold on it ... look forward to
hearing back on that ...

I still don't like it for the above reason.

For me, the only thing that I really like is the three extra BOLD paras
that extend the protection from liability to encompass ALL DEVELOPERS
instead of just "UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA", which I don't believe any of
us falls under? :)

Yes, but legal advice so far suggests it is useless in Australia (&
probably the UK), where it is not lawful to remove warranties. All you can
do here is reduce liability. More on this in a future email.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/

At 00:24 5/07/00 -0400, Mike Mascari wrote:

Am I correct in saying that you agree that the GPL is where we should be,
but you want people to go there of their own free will?

Why do you continue to insist that GPL is superior to BSD? GPL is BSD
*with restrictions*

I don't. The above was a question to Jan.

I have stated in the past that I would prefer PG to be GPL, but that is
based on my perception of PG as a 'strategic resource' for my company. The
GPL Vs. BSD discussion is a religious war that will only be resolved in
time. I do, honestly, hope Jan is right about the convergence of open
source and industry.

The context in which I said I would prefer PG to be GPL was when someone
suggested leaving the BSD licence for a more restrictive (to developers
rights over their submissions) version.

If someone comes along and sweeps up the
major developers:

A) Good for the major developers - they deserve to have large
sums of cash thrown their way, particularly for many of them who
have been working on this *for years*

I totally agree. This can happen under GPL. If I were a company wanting to
develop PG, the source would be less of an issue than access to the core
developers who are the real resource. As Jan has said elsewhere, keeping
source secret is a waste of effort.

B) The moment it happens, the project forks and another "Marc"
out-there offers to host development on his machine and the
process begins again. PostgreSQL exists despite Illustra's
existence.

No problem here but wasted effort.

This is not something new. SunOS, AIX, HPUX, etc. all have (at
one time or another) considerable BSD roots. And yet FreeBSD
still exists... All GPL does is 'poison' the pot by prohibiting
commercial spawns which may leverage the code. If someone makes
some money selling CommercialGres by integrating replication,
distributive, and parallel query, good for them.

This is the place where the religious war starts, so I'll confine my
comments to the issue at hand:

In summary of my position:

1. I am happy to continue with vanilla BSD + extra warranty & liability
disclaimers.

2. If the license goes anywhere else, I *believe* it probably should go GPL.

3. If people really want to write yeat another license (as opposed to
warranty), then they should do it properly - look at the objectives, look
at all existing public licenses, find the once closest to what the
developer & user base wants, modify it according to the specific needs.
Perhaps a modified LGPL might be better. Someone (Jan?) noted that adding a
driver is a problem under GPL - perhaps that should be addressed, rather
than just taking away more rights of developers as is proposed by Great
Bridge.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/

At 17:51 4/07/00 +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:

The Hermit Hacker wrote:

The new license should clearly make it impossible to later
pull out things again.

My legal advice is that, assuming they knew it was a BSD project, they
can't take it out of PostgreSQL. But you could, for example, stop Microsoft
using your compression code in one of their products. The new license
removes this right from you.

I still hold the
copyright on 'em - don't I.

You will have the copyright, even under the new license. All you are doing
is waiving your rights to restrict it's use in any way whatsoever for any
purpose.

Can a new license change the
legal state of previous contributions?

No.

I don't think so. What
do we have to do to reversely apply this "irrevocable" term
to all so far done contributions?

Yes. Sticking with BSD looks good to me.

And some words to all the people who think GPL is better.
IMHO it is a kind of Open Source Fashism. Forcing everything
that uses a little snippet of open code to be open too
doesn't have anything to do with free software. There are a
couple of things Open Source can never offer. For example a
native DB-link interface between a Postgres DB and a
commercial one might require NDA to get internals. Surely a
useful thing that must be a closed source product, so what
would it be good for to make it's development impossible?

I agree this is a problem with GPL; perhaps not with LGPL if the new code
could be written to require minimum changes to existing PG code, and if the
PG changes were not related to the NDA. I don't really want to start a GPL
vs. BSD argument here, I'm just asking if you had thought of that possibility.

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Philip Warner wrote:

My legal advice is that, assuming they knew it was a BSD project, they
can't take it out of PostgreSQL. But you could, for example, stop Microsoft
using your compression code in one of their products. The new license
removes this right from you.

Why wouldn't MS be able to take the code and use it while abiding by its
terms and conditions?

At 15:15 5/07/00 +1000, Chris Bitmead wrote:

Why wouldn't MS be able to take the code and use it while abiding by its
terms and conditions?

I am told that the most likely interpretation of this is that it is for use
in PostgreSQL or one of its descendants. The new clause changes that to
'any use whatsoever'.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Philip Warner | __---_____
Albatross Consulting Pty. Ltd. |----/ - \
(A.C.N. 008 659 498) | /(@) ______---_
Tel: (+61) 0500 83 82 81 | _________ \
Fax: (+61) 0500 83 82 82 | ___________ |
Http://www.rhyme.com.au | / \|
| --________--
PGP key available upon request, | /
and from pgp5.ai.mit.edu:11371 |/

Philip Warner wrote:

Am I correct in saying that you agree that the GPL is where we should be,
but you want people to go there of their own free will?

Right. Someone who doesn't want to make his code "FREE" in
the entire meaning of this word but want to make it open for
any non-commercial use should choose it. IMHO the GPL
includes "this is the one and only truth and must propagate
up into everything started on something that once went under
this license". Who am I to restrict my code in that way? Can
I see the future?

Jan

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