[postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

[Paragon Corporation]

Paolo,

I think software is more valuable the more people are using it and stress
testing it.  That said, I'm more concerned about people not using PostGIS
because they fear they will have to release their proprietary source code,
more than I am worried about people not giving back to the community. Even
people who don't give back, find bugs and complain which makes the software
stronger and more robust when we fix it.

There are plenty of people producing proprietary software that have no
qualms about giving their enhancements back to PostGIS/GEOS etc and in fact
beg us to take them so they don't have to cut in there changes with each
release.  We have several customers like that -- e.g. the tiger geocoder
work we are doing, x3d export, the ability for shp2pgsql to be able to read
raw dbf (with no shape), the ability to export .prj were all pieces of work
we did as part of work we did for clients marketing closed source SaaS that
relies on PostGIS.  They're willingness to give back these changes wouldn't
have been any different if PostGIS were GPL or BSD because to them PostGIS
is just a wheel in their armor like any other database software would be.
However the fact that PostGIS is GPL does give some a pause for concern as
to how they distribute it etc and their willingness to even use it since it
does bring up the question of where their software begins and PostGIS ends.
If you use Oracle, SQL Server etc, the fact there is a clear payment and
exchange of goods makes it in some cases a safer choice if you are worried
about protecting your intellectual property.

Thanks,
Regina



-----Original Message-----
From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net
[mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Paolo
Cavallini
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 2:46 AM
To: postgis-users at postgis.refractions.net
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] PostGIS documentation license

Il 26/07/2011 22:06, Paragon Corporation ha scritto:

> Regarding GPL.   Mostly I just find the whole licensing confusing.  I
don't
> think I'm the only one who would be happier if PostGIS was under a BSD/MIT
> or some other licensing.  Mostly just for the headache of arguing about
what
> you can and can't do with it for commercial purposes.

For what is worth: I'm against it, as this would make it easy to use the
code we
developed in proprietary projects, returning nothing to the project.
All the best.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc
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