Re: [GENERAL] PostgreSQL Licence: GNU/GPL

Ned Wolpert wrote:

> On Mon, 2002-01-21 at 16:34, Don Baccus wrote:
>
>>Not to mention the fact that anyone who chooses to take a look around
>>the universe will find at least as many commercial entities contributing
>>to well-known GPL'd software as to well-known BSD'd software.
>>
>>Oracle supports Linux, not xxxBSD. IBM supports Linux, not xxxBSD.
>>
>
> I'm not sure that this is because of license issues with GPL versus BSD.

I wasn't implying this. I simply pointed out that the supposed
disincentive to commercial participation that the GPL brings to the
table is fantasy.

> Oracle's applications on Linux are released with a propritary license...
> that runs on a (for the most part) GPL'd OS.

Right. No viral effect, nope, the LGPL was developed precisely to make
this point clear though it can be argued it wasn't necessary. Nothing
wrong with being precise and up-front with what is thought to be OK or
not, though.

> Yes, both Oracle and IBM (and Sun for that fact) support Linux more than
> xxxBSD as operating systems, and they are more likely to release code
> under GPL (Sun with OpenOffice, etc) but their support of Linux is more
> market driven, not license driven. (

Which wasn't my point, see above. There's no license disincentive. I
didn't argue that there's a license *incentive* working in the GPL's favor.

Though now that you mention it, there might be - IBM may be more willing
to release code under the GPL because they know that a competitor will
have to release improvements under the GPL, rather than suck in IBM's
stuff as the basis for a proprietary product.

When you're tackling Microsoft that's something to consider, given that
they've incorporated BSD-licensed code into windows in the past.

--
Don Baccus
Portland, OR
http://donb.photo.net, http://birdnotes.net, http://openacs.org