Re: responses to licensing discussion - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Karl DeBisschop
Subject Re: responses to licensing discussion
Date
Msg-id 39632B80.CBD28EC0@h00a0cc3b7988.ne.mediaone.net
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: responses to licensing discussion  (Mike Mascari <mascarm@mascari.com>)
List pgsql-general
Philip Warner wrote:
>
> At 02:36 5/07/00 +0200, Jan Wieck wrote:
> >
> >    So the problem left are binary distributions.
> >
>
> There might be a technical solution here; I *think* RPM allows pretty
> flexible running of scripts. We could only make binary distributions for
> architectures that support RPM.

RPM does allow this. But it does sort of screw up the distribution
process to have all these dialogs in the RPMS.  With redhat, I fire up
the installation and walk away because redhat has been pretty religious
about suppressing dialogs.  With debian, I fire up the install, then
keep comimg back to the machine every 15 minute because one package or
another is waiting for me to enter a few keystrokes (NOTE to
distribution partisans - there are things I like better about each
distribution - I'm not advocating one over the other here)

> We could also pop up a message on 'initdb', or the first time the
> postmaster is started etc etc.

On initdb seems reasonable, and gets around the issue above.

> We might even want to be really paranoid, and warn each user when they
> first go into psql...I provide WWW services, and part of that service is
> access to PG. My agreements always limit my liabilities, but these users
> never see the BSD waiver of PG...

Why don't they? The installer accepts the license.  It is then the role
of the installer to ensure that all the people he/she supports
understand how the software may be used, IMHO. For instance, unless I am
the installer of M$ Office, I don't see the shrink wrap.  Which means
nearly all users in an office don't see the shrink wrap.  But that seems
okay to M$.

I would urge that this issue of actively acknowleging license not be
carried too far. In the extreme, imagine connecting to a MS IIS web
server, it checks afor a unique cookie on your machine and says "Hmm - I
don't know that this user has ever connected to IIS before - they have
not been to my site - so I'd better pop up a dialog first"

IMHO, it is your responsibilty os the provider of services to make your
users aware of the various licenses that apply. If PG adopts something
like the above mechanism, then you may well want to have a dialog for
your users to do just that.  But PG should not dictate how I interact
with my users.

Instead of disturbing my web users, maybe there should be an additional
requirement in the license that says people who repackage postgres, or
make it available through other means, are responsible for ensuring that
the users are aware of the license requirements.  Then a RedHat type
vendor can add the PG license to their intro screen, or they can leave a
message in initdb active. PG could provide tools to make notification on
first connect easier, but I do not believe that needs to be enforced by
PG.

Come to think of it, this sort of propagation clause may be needed
anyway. Otheriwse, I could download PG by clicking through your license
screen on the website, then post it to an ftp repository somewhere. Once
I've done that, it seems to me that someone downloading from my ftp site
would never acknowlege the license, and there you are on the hook again.

Right now the BSD handles this passive for the passive case - the
license stipulates that the license must appear in derivative products.
If active acknowlegement is required (not that I like the idea, but if
it is required to protect developers) then that active aknowlegement
must somehow stipulate that all deriviative products need to include
some similar form of active acknowlegement. Otherwise you will never be
able to distribute source, and it won't be open source anymore.


--
Karl DeBisschop

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