Re: contrib/postgis spatial extensions

Tom Lane writes:

> I'm for adding this to contrib, but is there any chance of getting it
> released under our BSD-style license, not GPL? If it's GPL then it
> will never be a candidate to move out of contrib and into the main tree,
> which seems like something we'd like to do with it eventually. The GPL
> license forbids us from merging GPL'd code into BSD-licensed code,
> so the best we can do with GPL'd code is keep it at arm's length in
> the contrib area.

I think I have a problem with this approach. If you think these types are
the way to go for PostgreSQL then they should be available under a
BSD-style license or we should not support them by shipping them in the
distribution. You are thereby effectively declaring the development on
the existing geometry types obsolete in favour of something not as free as
we like.

In particular, what kind of situation, legal and otherwise, are you
creating for someone who may in the future want to implement a free
version of these types?

This PostGIS project seems big enough that they can handle their own
releases. I have a general problem with everything that comes our way
being stuffed in contrib (imagine Perl shipping the whole CPAN in its
tarball), but half a meg seems to be too much.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net http://funkturm.homeip.net/~peter