[postgis-users] Is PostGIS effectively LGPL?

[Regina Obe]

>> of tap-dancing, depending on what companies have decided feels right. 
>> We aren't a $1B company, we aren't suing anybody, do your due 
>> diligence and abide by the spirit of the license as best you can.

> Well, these license issues can change if we rely just on intent, e.g.
> Oracle buys Sun.  It is good to have it in an FAQ that everyone can read.  You can change the FAQ, but as long as the text is there people are clear.

I'm all for clarity.  How's this as added to FAQ. I think these points are fairly clear based on GPL and unfuzzify some of the linking issues the GPL glosses over.

1) If you are providing PostGIS via SaaS platform you do not need to provide source code of your application or SaaS platform to customers since you are not distributing binaries.
2) If you provide a closed source fork of PostgreSQL or some other database platform that uses PostGIS as an extension, you should distribute PostGIS separately from the core
application/database platform if you do not want to be obliged to provide the source code of your closed fork to your customers.

3) If your version of PostGIS requires changing the source code of PostGIS in any way, you must provide these changes to customers in source code form as well as your whole application if you distribute them together.

4) If you develop an extension that relies on PostGIS, you do not need to distribute the source of this extension unless you are distributing PostGIS library together with the extension.

Thoughts,
Regina