[postgis] A demonstration (or better) client

[Timothy H. Keitt]

John Reid wrote:

>  Greetings all,
>
>Comments below.
>
>Timothy H. Keitt wrote:
>
>>John Reid wrote:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>
>>>I'snt there some GPL/LGPL code in postgresql's contrib directory?  ... 
>>>Yep. In contrib the array, string, and userlock modules have GPL headers 
>>>in the READMEs, as well as src/interfaces/odbc (LGPL) and 
>>>src/interfaces/perl5 (LGPL or Artistic).  So a change in licence to BSD 
>>>style is probably is not necessary.  Still need to check though - I 
>>>cannot quickly find confirmation in the copyright notices for the 
>>>distribution.
>>>
>>>However these make no mention of GPL code.  For that matter there is no 
>>>information on licencing in pgsql/contrib/README.  However, from the 
>>>debian postgresql-contrib docs (/usr/doc/postgresql-contrib/copyright):
>>>
>>>It was downloaded from 
>>><ftp://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/postgresql.7.0.2.tar.gz>
>>>
>>>Copyright.  The following copyright applies to the entire distribution:
>>>
>>>PostgreSQL Data Base Management System (formerly known as Postgres, then
>>>as Postgres95).
>>>
>>>Copyright (c) 1994-7 Regents of the University of California
>>>
>>>Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
>>>documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written 
>>>agreement
>>>is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this
>>>paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies.
>>>
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>Confused yet?  I am ...
>>>
>>>cheers,
>>>John
>>>
>>Me too.  Does it violate the GPL to use postgis with postgresql?
>>
>>T.
>>
>I'm no licence lawyer, but it seems to me from what I can remember of the GPL that the key part is other software cannot depend on GPL software without violating the GPL.  However interfacing is fine i.e. as long as the potential is there to use non-GPL software to perform the same task, no problems.  However in this case we have PostGIS (GPL) depending on BSD (no usage restrictions apart from attribution), so I can't see any problems.  Again, let me stress that I am no expert on this (I find it hard to simultaneously believe in two apparently contradictory world views after my first cup of coffee, which seems to be a prerequisite ability for lawyers ;-).
>
This is probably a grey area.  Technically, postgresql is linking 
postgis, but then it doesn't depend on postgis; postgis only adds 
functions.  Now that I think about it, its probably fine.  Postgresql 
itself doesn't actually call postgis code.  Only the postgis sql code 
calls postgis and that's licenced seperately from postgresql.


>
>
>Then we get something like the CORBA component model which is going to make all of this a real nightmare :-(
>
>However, I wonder if it needs to be raised with the POstgreSQL folks that as there is GPL code in the distribution, this should be mentioned in the documentation accompanying the postgresql source.  Any idea?
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>john reid                                    e-mail: jgreid at uow.edu.au <mailto:jgreid at uow.edu.au>
>technical officer                               building 41, room G02A 
>school of geosciences                          phone: +61 02 4221 3963
>university of wollongong                         fax: +61 02 4221 4250
>nsw  2522  australia
>        
>uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be
>seen.  more questions!
>                                                       -mentat zensufi
>
>apply standard disclaimers as desired...
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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-- 
Timothy H. Keitt
Department of Ecology and Evolution
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, New York 11794 USA
Phone: 631-632-1101, FAX: 631-632-7626
http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/keitt/




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