Re: Basic JSON support

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 2:50 PM, Joseph Adams <joeyadams3(dot)14159(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> If he doesn't respond, or outright refuses (which I, for one, doubt
>> will happen), my fallback plan is to rewrite the JSON validation code
>> by drawing from my original code (meaning it won't be in bison/flex)
>> and post a patch for it. Unfortunately, it seems to me that there
>> aren't very many ways of expressing a JSON parser in bison/flex, and
>> thus the idea of JSON parsing with bison/flex is effectively locked
>> down by the GPL unless we can get a more permissive license for
>> jsonval. But, I am not a lawyer.

> If someone who hasn't looked at the GPL code sits down and codes
> something up based on the json.org home page, it's hard to imagine how
> anyone could be grumpy about that.

Yeah. Joseph seems to be confusing copyrights with patents. The idea
of "parse JSON with bison/flex" is not patentable by any stretch of the
imagination.

But having said that, I wonder whether bison/flex are really the best
tool for the job in the first place. From what I understand of JSON
(which admittedly ain't much) a bison parser seems like overkill:
it'd probably be both bloated and slow compared to a simple handwritten
recursive-descent parser.

regards, tom lane