Re: Patent warning about the Greenplum source code

On 10/31/2015 11:47 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 1, 2015 at 01:27:13AM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 04:47:35AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>>> Therefore, I caution people from viewing the Greenplum source code as
>>> you might see patented ideas that could be later implemented in
>>> Postgres, opening Postgres up to increased patent violation problems. I
>>> am also concerned about existing community members who work for
>>> Pivotal/Greenplum and therefore are required to view the patented source
>>> code. The license issue might eventually be improved by
>>> Pivotal/Greenplum, but, for now, I think caution is necessary.

Do let me point out that *code* isn't patented. *techniques* are. So
those techniques are patented whether or not you read the code. It's
just that if you read the code, copy the technique directly, and put it
in Postgres, that's considered "willful" instead of "innocent"
infringement and the penalties are different. Its effect on our project
is the same, though: we have to rip out the code in a hurry.

Maybe we should just relicense PostgreSQL as Apache and cover all of the
patent issues ;-)

>>>
>>> Of course, never mention known-patented ideas in any community forum,
>>> including this email list.
>>
>> I just found out that Citus Data has patent applications pending, so
>> viewing Citus Data source code has the same problems as Greenplum.
>
> Actually, it might only be their closed source software that contains
> patents, i.e. not pg_shard. I will check and report back when I can
> unless someone else reports here first.

I will ask Citus Data for an official statement. I will point out that
cstore_fdw is Apache-licensed, which also contains a patent grant.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com