Re: The Yellow Brick Road

Ron Peterson wrote:
>Reassurances notwithstanding, recent developments in the PostgreSQL
>community still concern me. I understand Tom would like to postpone
>this thread.
>
>> We wanted to postpone the discussion until Great Bridge was out in
>> the open and could allow Rusty Friddell, their counsel, to answer
>> questions about his suggestions directly. (And just to defuse any
>> fears beforehand, there will be no license changes without full
>> discussion and consensus from the pghackers community. This
>> decision is not core's to make, but the community's.)
> - Tom Lane
>
>I'm certainly interested in what Rusty has to say. But please don't ask
>the PostgreSQL community to stop discussing this issue until Great
>Bridge speaks. Sorry to sound cynical and jaded, but it seems an
>ominous portent that we should be asked to keep our mouths shut until
>Daddy Warbucks has his say.

I didn't read Tom's words like that at all. He seems to be saying that
discussion _had_ been delayed until the recent announcement; so that
Great Bridge's counsel would be free to speak, if he had anything to say.
Before the announcement, he would not have been free to say anything.
There is no reason to hold back on discussion now the announcement has
been made.

...

>So my question is: if you really mean what you say, why don't you
>release PostgreSQL under the GPL? The situation at hand is exactly the
>type of situation the GPL is intended to address - namely, to provide
>assurance to the community at large that nobody obtains proprietary
>ownership of source code.

The developers are not free to change the licence of the code inherited
from UCB, though they could put their own additions under the GPL, which
would have the effect you want. Any commercial body wanting to make
a proprietary version would then have to start from the latest pure BSD
release.

I shouldn't worry, though. Even if the whole core team went renegade and
sold out to the evil empire, a new team would take the latest free release
and carry on from there.

--
Oliver Elphick Oliver(dot)Elphick(at)lfix(dot)co(dot)uk
Isle of Wight http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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