[postgis-devel] License

[Obe, Regina]

>> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 6:45 PM, Obe, Regina <robe.dnd at cityofboston.gov> wrote:
>> So I guess my biggest gripe is the GPL licensing, but that is more of a
>> personal dislike that I can learn to live with.

> The only problem that the GPL has caused us to date, as far as I can
> tell, is precisely this one. It has foreclosed our ability to merge
> into the mainline, due to license conflict. Otherwise, the number of
> practical problems have been pretty minimal. Even folks like
> EnterpriseDB have been able to include PostGIS in their packages, via
> optional install.

I think you are for the most part right and as strk suggested a more detailed FAQ about
what is legal and what is not would probably solve this.

I'm just irritated because I've heard people in blogs accuse EnterpriseDb of violating 
PostGIS licensing because they package it with their stuff, when we know very well they are not and it does scare some people
I have talked to who are creating innovative things -- thinking if they use a postGIS function
in some critical plpgsql or whatever they have to give that back and so forth 
when its so baked into their app and intellectual property that really has nothing to do 
with PostGIS aside from using PostGIS functions.

That is the view a lot of people have of GPL is all.  You use it, you use your right to innovate
using it.
 


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