Re: Does this look ethical to you?

From: "Magnus Hagander" <mha(at)sollentuna(dot)net>
To: "Tony Caduto" <tony(dot)caduto(at)amsoftwaredesign(dot)com>, "Dave Page" <dpage(at)vale-housing(dot)co(dot)uk>
Cc: <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Does this look ethical to you?
Date: 2006-01-24 14:22:28
Message-ID: 6BCB9D8A16AC4241919521715F4D8BCE6C7F32@algol.sollentuna.se
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> > There most certainly are companies making money from pgAdmin,
> > including at least 2 of the most well known large PostgreSQL
> > companies. In addition to potentially hurting them, you are trading
> > off our long established name, which to add insult to injury you
> > haven't even spelt or formatted correctly (it is, and has
> always been pgAdmin)!
>
> Hi Dave,
> Those companies simply bundle pgAdmin III, they don't sell
> it, there is a big difference. I know for a fact the ones
> you are talking about and the version they bundle have no
> changes over the stock one at all.

Then your facts are wrong. At least one of the ones Dave is talking
about has done extensive modifications for it. And sell it as part of a
commercial product. (I would assume that's what he's talking about. If
not, this is a different company, but it's still there)

> I don't think mentioning a product as a alternative to
> pgAdmin III is wrong since pgAdmin III has such a big
> advantage being distributed with the Windows version of
> Postgresql. It almost has monopoly written on it since the
> user is not given any idea that there is anything else
> available. At least you are not forced to install it, but
> still a HUGE,HUGE advantage over any other competing product.

We (pginstaller hat goes on) don't know of any competing products. We
will be happy to consider bundling any competing product, including PG
Lightning Admin. One of the most important things in order to be
distributed as part of an open source product is that the parts are open
source. If PGLA (or a lite version if necessary) is available under an
OSS license, we'll definitly consider bundling it.
(We have considered bundling phpPgAdmin, but haven't found a good way to
do it without dragging in a huge load of dependencies)

If that's not acceptable, there is nothing preventing you from
delivering a "Lightning PostgreSQL". All the parts that are in the
installer are open source, it's just a matter of making the modification
to put in pg lightning admin there. You might need to do something about
the GPL stuff, don't know for sure. The BSD parts definitly permit it.

But to be clear, I don't think it's wrong to say that PGLA is an
alternative to pgAdmin. Because that's what it is. It's just a matter
of *how* it's done.

> pgAdmin does not play fair either, if you want to talk fair
> maybe a link should be placed in the windows pgAdmin
> installer informing users of other comercially available options.

You're kidding, right? Should we also mention in the PostgreSQL
installer that you should perhaps look at Oracle or DB2? And I don't see
most Linux distributions informing the users that Windows might be an
alternative.

We *do* put up links to commercial management software on the website
(PostgreSQL website, because that's where it applies), and we post news
about it. IMHO, that's about as far as "the project" should go when it
comes to "free marketing for commercial software".

//Magnus

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