Re: pluggable compression support

On 06/14/2013 06:56 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 8:45 PM, Andres Freund <andres(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
>> On 2013-06-14 17:35:02 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>>
>>>> No. I think as long as we only have pglz and one new algorithm (even if
>>>> that is lz4 instead of the current snappy) we should just always use the
>>>> new algorithm. Unless I missed it nobody seemed to have voiced a
>>>> contrary position?
>>>> For testing/evaluation the guc seems to be sufficient.
>>>
>>> Then it's not "pluggable", is it? It's "upgradable compression
>>> support", if anything. Which is fine, but let's not confuse people.
>>
>> The point is that it's pluggable on the storage level in the sense of
>> that several different algorithms can coexist and new ones can
>> relatively easily added.
>> That part is what seems to have blocked progress for quite a while
>> now. So fixing that seems to be the interesting thing.
>>
>> I am happy enough to do the work of making it configurable if we want it
>> to be... But I have zap interest of doing it and throw it away in the
>> end because we decide we don't need it.
>
> I don't think we need it. I think what we need is to decide is which
> algorithm is legally OK to use. And then put it in.
>
> In the past, we've had a great deal of speculation about that legal
> question from people who are not lawyers. Maybe it would be valuable
> to get some opinions from people who ARE lawyers. Tom and Heikki both
> work for real big companies which, I'm guessing, have substantial
> legal departments; perhaps they could pursue getting the algorithms of
> possible interest vetted. Or, I could try to find out whether it's
> possible do something similar through EnterpriseDB.

We have IP legal representation through Software in the Public interest
who pretty much specializes in this type of thing.

Should I follow up? If so, I need a summary of the exact question
including licenses etc.

JD

>

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