Re: PostGIS in a commercial project

On -10/01/37 20:59, Thomas Kellerer wrote:

>>> Now PostGIS is licensed under the GPL and I wonder if we can use it
>>> in a commercial (customer specific) project then. The source code
>>> will not be made open source, but of course the customer will get
>>> the source code.
>>>
>>> Is it still OK to use the GPL licensed PostGIS in this case? Is
>>> that then considered a derivative work because the application will
>>> not work without PostGIS?
>>
>> If it's pure GPL, then postgresql is automagically relicenced to GPL,
>> because postgresql allows relicencing and GPL force it to be GPL.
>> Your source code must be in GPL too. Remember, it's a virus licence
>> and has the same problem that Midas king had.
>
> Thanks for the answer.
>
> I think we'll better be safe than sorry and we will not use PostGIS then.
>
> Regards
> Thomas

Hi Thomas,

As Robert has suggested, you have misunderstood the GPL license - if you
make changes to the *PostGIS* source code AND you distribute the
modified code to your customer (rather than offering a managed service),
you would need to make the changes available to your *customer* upon
request but there is no obligation to make them available to anyone
else. But then if your application connects remotely to the PostgreSQL
server then your application isn't linking directly to the PostGIS
libraries, so then this becomes a non-issue anyway.

I guess strictly speaking you could call using stored procedures with
PostGIS functions a GPL "violation", but I don't believe anyone
associated with the project would have a problem with this. The aim of
the GPL license for PostGIS was to ensure that code was contributed back
to the project core, not because we want to claim ownership on
everyone's GIS application code.

If you have any further questions related to licensing, we would be glad
to discuss this further on the postgis-users mailing list.

Kind regards,

Mark.
(Member of the PostGIS PSC)

--
Mark Cave-Ayland - Senior Technical Architect
PostgreSQL - PostGIS
Sirius Corporation plc - control through freedom
http://www.siriusit.co.uk
t: +44 870 608 0063

Sirius Labs: http://www.siriusit.co.uk/labs