Re: IBM patent - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Tommi Maekitalo
Subject Re: IBM patent
Date
Msg-id 200501310959.09099.t.maekitalo@epgmbh.de
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: IBM patent  ("Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@postgresql.org>)
List pgsql-hackers
Am Samstag, 29. Januar 2005 23:32 schrieb Marc G. Fournier:
> On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Christopher Browne wrote:
> > Actually, the latter isn't so.
> >
> > If Mammoth or Pervasive or such release their own release of
> > PostgreSQL, nothing has historically mandated that they make that
> > release available under the BSD license.
> >
> > Presumably acceptance of the patent would change that.
> >
> > You and I might not have individual objections to this situation, but
> > one or another of the companies putting together PostgreSQL releases
> > very well might.
>
> But, there is nothing stop'ng them from replacing the ARC code with their
> own variant though ...
>
And what if there are many more patented parts? If someone wants to have a 
patent-free variant, he has to replace big parts of postgresql? That wouldn't 
be good for postgresql. If there is a patent-problem, postgresql has to 
remove it.

What I think about is the legal implications. Sorry, but I don't know BSD very 
well. Does BSD really allow to remove this BSD-license and put his own, or 
does BSD allow to release commercial closed-source-variants under the 
BSD-license?

Tommi


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