On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 12:12:03PM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On 07/23/2018 12:06 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >>So, is it FUD? The core needs paid-for legal advice, not speculation.
> >>
> >>I'm quite certain that a software license can make a patent grant to the
> >>satisfaction of many open source communities, and almost certainly to
> >>the satisfaction of the PG community. But it will take an IP lawyer to
> >>review or write such a license.
> >And is the payback worth it? Many don't think so.
>
> Although Nico is correct, I also think we need to consider what the
> community wants here. Historically, we have always explicitly avoided
> anything to do with patents to the point where some hackers won't even read
> white papers on patented methods. I do think there is a definite
> technological advantage for PostgreSQL if there was a license that core
> could accept that was patent friendly but frankly, I don't think that core
> or the community has the desire to work through the cost of doing so.
Absolutely.
I myself don't want to be tainted when reading PG source code (or even
docs).
I believe PG needs to demand at least royalty-free, world-wide,
non-exclusive, transferrable license, either irrevocable (i.e., without
further conditions) or with a no-lawsuit covenant (i.e., revocable when
the patent owner gets sued by the patent user). Such terms would be
acceptable to me as a third-party contributor. Other contributors might
have a different take. An IP lawyer could tighten that up and turn it
into legalese.
There might exist a license with suitable patent grant clauses that PG
could adopt for new contributions. (Not GPLv3, of course, since that
one is viral, but still, it has patent grant language that could be
adapted for PG.)
I myself would not welcome patent grants that apply only to PG itself
and not to forks of it. I would also not welcome grants that apply only
to PG and forks of it, but not new non-PG implementations of
the same patent (whether open source or not) -- i.e., don't taint me.
I suspect most other contributors too would not want to be tainted, so I
think that's probably the most critical requirement, and that does drive
towards the minimum grant breadth described above.
Some contributors may also oppose no-lawsuit covenants, but I believe
PG will benefit much more from allowing them than from disallowing them.
At any rate, PG absolutely should accept code involving patents that are
placed in the public domain provided that the owner places all relevant
patents (in the U.S., in the EU, and so on -- wherever they have them)
in the public domain. Yes, I'm aware that Germany does not recognize
the idea of "public domain". This too requires legal advice, which my
advice isn't.
Nico
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