Re: Change License

On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 7:57 AM, P. Christeas <xrg(at)linux(dot)gr> wrote:

> On Wednesday 11 December 2013, Daniele Varrazzo wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 10:10 PM, Abraham Elmahrek <abe(at)cloudera(dot)com>
> wrote:
> > > Hey Guys,
> > >
> > > Thanks for the speedy responses. I work on the Hue project at Cloudera.
> >
> > Note: the correct url above is <http://www.apache.org/legal/3party.html
> >.
> >
> > I didn't know the Apache Software Foundation was in open war with the
> > GPL. Well, too bad: it seems you chose the wrong license for your
> > software.
>
> ++ I agree.
>
> IMHO the restriction is the ASL that forbids you to use other /open/
> licenses.
> Very strange that they do so, as your code would /link/ against psycopg2,
> not
> technically /derive/ from it.
>

AIUI they *don't* forbid that. They specifically say you can put LGPL
things under your "system requirements" for example. The rule is only
against *bundling* it, because that further restricts downstream
distribution of the *bundle*. (And it's not the ASL that makes the
restrictions, it's the ASF. And even as such, it's only a *proposal*)

With GPL (not LGPL) you can't even *require* it, it has to be optional. But
that does not apply to LGPL.

I would also vote against re-licensing psycopg2, as that would introduce a
> backdoor for /not contributing/ back any improvements.
>

I don't think that is the main problem - though it's of course a
consideration. Personally I'd *prefer* if all major drivers for PostgreSQL
were licensed under the same license as PostgreSQL, because it would make a
lot of things just so much easier. And I think history has proven that our
community is pretty good at contributing back. And even if not, I wouldn't
be so worried about that wrt a driver - I would be more worried when it
comes to things like pgadmin.

That said, I'm not sure it's worth going through the pain of doing it even
if you wanted. pgAdmin changed over to the PostgreSQL license a few years
ago, and it was a PITA. Mainly because you have to find every single author
of every single line of code in it and have those people sign off on the
change. I have no idea how much work that would be for psycopg2 in the
first place, but I doubt it's worth it since the license is LGPL.

If the license today had been GPL, it would have been a real problem that
would have to be addressed. But if it had been, I doubt psycopg2 would've
reached the level of popularity it has today, so I think that's a moot
point :)

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/