Ingres to be released as open source

[ BCC to hackers and advocacy.]

Ingres is to be released as open source:

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/25/0043219&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=137&tid=163&tid=185&tid=198

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> Ingres is to be released as open source:
>
> http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/25/0043219&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=137&tid=163&tid=185&tid=198

Like the article says, I wonder if these is any synergy between the
products. ie. Can we grab features from their codebase?

Chris

Quoth chriskl(at)familyhealth(dot)com(dot)au (Christopher Kings-Lynne):
>> Ingres is to be released as open source:
>>
>> http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/25/0043219&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=137&tid=163&tid=185&tid=198
>
> Like the article says, I wonder if these is any synergy between the
> products. ie. Can we grab features from their codebase?

I would be quite surprised if that were permissible. CA is making up
"yet another open source license," and it seems really unlikely that
this would represent a thin enough rewriting of the BSD license to
allow inclusion in PostgreSQL.

Most new licenses seem to be intended to do something akin to what
MySQL does, with dual licenses; some "open source" license, for 'toy'
usage and to allow free publicity via inclusion with Linux
distributions, but a traditional proprietary license for anyone making
'serious' use of their product. It would be surprising for CA's
instance to turn out otherwise...
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> Like the article says, I wonder if these is any synergy between the
> products. ie. Can we grab features from their codebase?

Wouldn't there be a license problem ?

Yes, Ingres may be able to pull features from PostgreSQL, but maybe it doesn't
work the other way.

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Em Tue, 25 May 2004 10:54:48 +0800, Christopher Kings-Lynne escreveu:

> Can we grab features from their codebase?

No, and that's what's nice about copyleft. It forbids code
hoarding.

OTOH, it would be interesting to see some competition. Ingres
could encroach in some current or prospective PostgreSQL users, and
perhaps force us to get back the *relational* QUEL. That could
prepare us better for a relational future, now that there is a
proprietary RDBMS (Alphora Dataphor, even if using SQL under covers)
and at least one in development (by Alfredo Novoa).

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>> Ingres is to be released as open source:
>>
>> http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/25/0043219&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=137&tid=163&tid=185&tid=198
>
> Like the article says, I wonder if these is any synergy between the
> products. ie. Can we grab features from their codebase?
>
> Chris
>

Just to sound in here, lets be very carefull. I hate to keep harping on
the SCO non-sense, but this is frighteningly similar to what is happening
to Linux.

Think of it this way:

PostgreSQL and Ingres (I believe) probably do share some code, or at least
structure and ideas.

Now, what if CA holds up Ingres and says: "PostgreSQL contains our IP,
commercial users of PostgreSQL must pay us royalties."

You may all feel this is far fetched, but after reading groklaw I'm not so
sure it is. We really need to make sure that there is *no* "smoking gun"
to a "culture of stealing copyrighted code."

I don't believe that SCO has a case, and I don't think that PostgreSQL
would contain a single line of improperly contributed code, but all we
need is a little popularity, a high profile client, and violla!! IP
lawsuit.