Publishing Postgres Manual as a book

On 23/03/2023 02:35 CET Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> wrote:

The Postgres Manual is available online as a PDF but I think having it in a
book form could be useful to some.

Is it legal for me to publish the manual as a book?

IANAL, but I'd say yes as long as you don't take a fee. The legal notice of
the documentation grants distribution of the documentation "for any purpose,
without fee". [0]https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/legalnotice.html Also mind the trademark policy. [1]https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/trademarks/

[0]: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/legalnotice.html
[1]: https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/trademarks/

--
Erik

2023年3月23日(木) 12:23 Erik Wienhold <ewie@ewie.name>:

On 23/03/2023 02:35 CET Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> wrote:

The Postgres Manual is available online as a PDF but I think having it in a
book form could be useful to some.

Is it legal for me to publish the manual as a book?

IANAL, but I'd say yes as long as you don't take a fee. The legal notice of
the documentation grants distribution of the documentation "for any purpose,
without fee".

Also not a lawyer, but the full sentence is:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is
hereby granted

which in my non-lawyerly interpretation means anyone copying, modifying and
distributing the documentation may do so without paying a fee. A distributor
could charge what they like. AFAIR the documentation has previously been
published in book form, though as it runs to about 3,000 A4 pages now,
the logistics are non-trivial.

Regards

Ian Barwick

2023年3月23日(木) 12:34 Ian Lawrence Barwick <barwick@gmail.com>:

2023年3月23日(木) 12:23 Erik Wienhold <ewie@ewie.name>:

On 23/03/2023 02:35 CET Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> wrote:

The Postgres Manual is available online as a PDF but I think having it in a
book form could be useful to some.

Is it legal for me to publish the manual as a book?

IANAL, but I'd say yes as long as you don't take a fee. The legal notice of
the documentation grants distribution of the documentation "for any purpose,
without fee".

Also not a lawyer, but the full sentence is:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is
hereby granted

which in my non-lawyerly interpretation means anyone copying, modifying and
distributing the documentation may do so without paying a fee. A distributor
could charge what they like. AFAIR the documentation has previously been
published in book form

e.g.: https://www.amazon.com/PostgreSQL-9-0-Official-Documentation-Language/dp/1596822465

though as it runs to about 3,000 A4 pages now, the logistics are non-trivial.

The PostgreSQL 15 A4 PDF has 2854 pages.

Regards

Ian Barwick

On 23/03/2023 04:34 CET Ian Lawrence Barwick <barwick@gmail.com> wrote:

2023年3月23日(木) 12:23 Erik Wienhold <ewie@ewie.name>:

On 23/03/2023 02:35 CET Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> wrote:

The Postgres Manual is available online as a PDF but I think having it in a
book form could be useful to some.

Is it legal for me to publish the manual as a book?

IANAL, but I'd say yes as long as you don't take a fee. The legal notice of
the documentation grants distribution of the documentation "for any purpose,
without fee".

Also not a lawyer, but the full sentence is:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is
hereby granted

which in my non-lawyerly interpretation means anyone copying, modifying and
distributing the documentation may do so without paying a fee. A distributor
could charge what they like.

I know the fee clause from licenses such as Zero-Clause BSD, ISC License, and
GPLv3. They state "with or without fee" or "gratis or for a fee" pertaining to
the distribution. That's also how I interpret the fee clause in the PostgreSQL
license with the difference that it does not permit taking a fee.

AFAIR the documentation has previously been published in book form, though as
it runs to about 3,000 A4 pages now, the logistics are non-trivial.

It's also out of date pretty quickly with four releases a year.

--
Erik

Erik Wienhold <ewie@ewie.name> writes:

On 23/03/2023 04:34 CET Ian Lawrence Barwick <barwick@gmail.com> wrote:

Also not a lawyer, but the full sentence is:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is
hereby granted

which in my non-lawyerly interpretation means anyone copying, modifying and
distributing the documentation may do so without paying a fee. A distributor
could charge what they like.

I know the fee clause from licenses such as Zero-Clause BSD, ISC License, and
GPLv3. They state "with or without fee" or "gratis or for a fee" pertaining to
the distribution. That's also how I interpret the fee clause in the PostgreSQL
license with the difference that it does not permit taking a fee.

No, I agree with Ian: our license says that the Postgres project does not
require a fee. It does not say that someone redistributing the material
can't charge for their efforts. It would obviously be ridiculous to
expect someone to print a multi-thousand-page book and then give it away
for free.

I do question the practicality and environmental cost of putting such
short-lived material on dead trees, though ...

regards, tom lane

Thanks All. Appreciate your responses.

On Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 9:33 PM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

to follow up, does Postgres have any official legal contact person / email
address? i can't find any on the website.

S.

On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 8:46 AM Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> wrote:

Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> writes:

to follow up, does Postgres have any official legal contact person / email
address? i can't find any on the website.

Typically, legal questions should be sent to the core team.

(To clarify: although I am a core team member, my previous response
was not speaking for core, just myself.)

regards, tom lane

Thanks Tom. what is the email alias of the core team? i don't see any core
alias below.

[image: image.png]
i also tried looking at https://www.postgresql.org/about/contact/ but
nothing with core pops up.

On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 10:16 AM Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

nevermind. i have got it.

On Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 11:45 AM Siddharth Jain <siddhsql@gmail.com> wrote: