Re: Re: [HACKERS] My new job - Mailing list pgsql-general

Correct...I'm not saying corporate is going to try to proprietize (or
however you spell it :)) it.  That I will say I don't think can happen...
(Actually, under GPL, any modifications of the code have to be free also,
correct?, so it can't really be proprietised unless they make an add-on that
is private... but then postgres can be run and compiled without it).

I mentioned off list a possible example.  MySQL and/or PHP.  They are open
source, but their interest is in corporate.  They go in directions that is
not in the open source best interest, but in corporate best interest...
granted, they aren't the same situation as postgres either, but the concern
would be that if 50% or over of a core steering/direction group were
employed by a single company, some direction may inadvertently taken that
serves the company better than the open source.  Also, this is not an attack
that it would be done with evil intent.

But, as many others have said, the core team seems to have a good hold on
reality and their ethics, so it probably won't come to an issue. :)

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Matthew N. Dodd" <winter@jurai.net>
Cc: "Adam Lang" <aalang@rutgersinsurance.com>;
<pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2000 3:31 AM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Re: [HACKERS] My new job


> I can say with a good deal of confidence that this is not part of GB's
> vision of how to play the game.  (Can't speak for pgsql.com or any other
> potential commercial players, however.)  GB is building their company on
> the assumption that open source is the best way to develop software, so
> it makes no sense to do any proprietary-style development.
>
> I am more concerned about conflicts like "well, today I could work on
> feature-or-bug-fix A that some paying customer of GB's is requesting,
> or I could work on feature-or-bug-fix B that IMHO would be of wider
> interest --- but isn't currently being requested by a paying customer".
> Or worse, "paying customer FOO wants some feature that I think would
> be actively bad for most people".  To the extent that paying customers
> are representative of the whole community, this shouldn't be a huge
> problem, but I'm sure that it will come up.
>
> > The real question is this:  At some point in the future the PostgreSQL
> > project may have to delay integrating a feature in order to play nicely
> > with the commercial ventures working with them.  Will this cause
problems?
>
> Hm, I'm having a hard time visualizing why this might happen.  Could you
> provide an example?
>
> regards, tom lane