Re: GNU readline and BSD license

* Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> [001229 16:01] wrote:
> The Hermit Hacker writes:
>
> > Is there a reason *not* to move towards that for v7.2 so that the
> > functions we are making optional with readline are automatic? Since we
> > could then ship the code, we could make it a standard vs optional
> > "feature" ...
> >
> > My thought would be to put 'make history feaure standard using libedit'
> > onto the TODO list and take it from there ...
>
> In my mind this is a pointless waste of developer time because there is no
> problem to solve here. I'm sure we all have better things to do than
> porting libedit to a dozen systems and then explaining to users why the
> tarball is bloated and their carefully composed readline configuration
> doesn't work anymore.
>
> If there is something functionally wrong with Readline then let's talk
> about it, but let's not replace it with something because some PHP dude
> said that RMS said something.

>From http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your
program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine
library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking
proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you
want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead
of this License.

My understanding (from the recent discussion) is that Postgresql
has certain dependancies on libreadline and won't compile/work
without it, if true this effectively forces anyone wishing to derive
a viable commercial product based on Postgresql to switch to the
GPL or port to libedit anyway.

If readline is completely optional then there's really no problem.

--
-Alfred Perlstein - [bright(at)wintelcom(dot)net|alfred(at)freebsd(dot)org]
"I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."