On Jun 6, 2005, at 1:55 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> The work is actually being done by another company, Pervasive. The
> Command Prompt version is to be GPL and is quite different.
>
Ok, cool. Where can I find more information about that? I searched
this list, googled for "pervasive odbc postgres," and poked around on
pervasive.com, but came up dry.
I did read the licensing debate in that Command Prompt thread, but it
seemed that the consensus was that an ODBC driver links with the driver
manager--not the application code--and so the GPL doesn't leak out and
infect ODBC client applications that happen to work with a GPL'ed ODBC
driver. I guess there would have to be a public statement from Command
Prompt, or legal precedent, to make this point of view a little more
trustworthy and official. If this interpretation was correct, would it
be legal to bundle a GPL'ed ODBC driver with a closed-source
application?
It certainly did seem to be Command Prompt's intention from the outset
to use the dual license model to require "fee-based commercial use,"
otherwise they could have chosen a less restrictive open source
license.
If there's anyone left with access to update the psqlodbc gborg site,
maybe they could put up a list of links to the "alternative" PostgreSQL
ODBC driver projects (and maybe mention the licensing model of each).
I don't think I'm the only person who has been suffering from a lack of
background knowledge in this regard.
Cheers,
-Jonathan Fuerth
