Re: The Contrib Roundup (long)

On Wednesday 08 June 2005 12:05, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 08:45:42AM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> > Peter,
> >
> > > Packagers should simply build all contrib items. No extra options are
> > > needed.
> >
> > No, they shoudn't. 3 of the packages currently in /contrib are GPL.
> > Building them makes all of PostgreSQL GPL.
>
> No, it means the distributors are illegally distributing software they
> don't have permission to distribute. The GPL doesn't make everything
> else GPL right away, that's a myth.
>

In the above scenario, the packages must be distributed under the GPL. This
is perfectly legal for both postgresql and those gpl contrib modules.
It would be incorrect (and therefore technically illegal) to distribute the
above combo with postgresql as bsd and the contribs as gpl, since that
violates the license that has been granted by the contrib modules.

> The only entity that can change PostgreSQL's license is the copyright
> owner. Since it's a rather big and unidentified entity, that's
> difficult. So the only lawful (legal?) way to distribute a binary
> PostgreSQL distribution is to refrain from distributing GPL-licensed
> contrib modules.
>

Thats just not true. Anyone can relicense thier own distribution of
postgresql under any license they see fit, as long as they adhere to the
license that they were given with thier copy of postgresql (which basically
just means keeping the copyrights intact). Thats how folks can sell
proprietary packages under closed licenses.

> Or we could remove them from contrib.

That's what I would recommend if we cant them relicensed.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL