Thread: Licensing question
Hello, after couple of months of research and testing PostgreSQL on Windows has proven to be an excellent RDBMS for my purposes. Now that i've solved most of the technical problems in the PostgreSQL-Cygwin-Windows chain, one question remains: if i deploy PostgreSQL with a commercial application, using Cygwin for PostgreSQL, do i need to purchase a license or should my application comply to Open Source specification? Can i avoid the need to purchase a license or to go Open Source by, for example, launching Cygwin and PostgreSQL as services, without any contact between my application and Cygwin, only connecting to PostgreSQL through JDBC? Cygwin home pages are unfortunately very obscure when it comes to licensing (and they aren't replying to questions on the subject...). In many places it says it's GPL, but from elsewhere in the site you get a very different picture. I asked an expert and even he couldn't come up with a certain answer right away. I found these two messages from these archives: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00118.php http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00119.php .. and these look very promising. However, i'd be grateful for any more detailed information on the subject and the conclusion. When it comes to licenses, one can't be too careful :) Thanks in advance, - Andy -
Andy, Again, IANAL... On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 01:00:35PM +0300, Antti Oikarinen wrote: > if i deploy PostgreSQL with a commercial application, using Cygwin for > PostgreSQL, do i need to purchase a license or should my application > comply to Open Source specification? Can i avoid the need to purchase a > license or to go Open Source by, for example, launching Cygwin and > PostgreSQL as services, without any contact between my application and > Cygwin, only connecting to PostgreSQL through JDBC? Yes, this is exactly what we were going to do with a product from my previous employer. Unfortunately, there was downsizing, so the product never saw the light of day. Nevertheless, I believe that we would have been fully complying with the licensing requirements. > Cygwin home pages are unfortunately very obscure when it comes to > licensing (and they aren't replying to questions on the subject...). In > many places it says it's GPL, but from elsewhere in the site you get a > very different picture. I asked an expert and even he couldn't come up > with a certain answer right away. I found these two messages from these > archives: > > http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00118.php > http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00119.php I can't say much more than the above -- just provide the required source (i.e., Cygwin, PostgreSQL, etc.) which is *not* your application source in this case. > .. and these look very promising. However, i'd be grateful for any more > detailed information on the subject and the conclusion. When it comes to > licenses, one can't be too careful :) Agreed! Jason
I dont understand the portion, "launching Cygwin and PostgreSQL as services" Can my commerical application's installer copy over the Cygwin dll's and have my service start the PostgreSQL database, as long I ship the Cygwin and PostgreSQL sources with the distribution. Thanks, -----Original Message----- From: Jason Tishler [mailto:jason@tishler.net] Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 5:49 AM To: Antti Oikarinen Cc: pgsql-cygwin@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [CYGWIN] Licensing question Andy, Again, IANAL... On Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 01:00:35PM +0300, Antti Oikarinen wrote: > if i deploy PostgreSQL with a commercial application, using Cygwin for > PostgreSQL, do i need to purchase a license or should my application > comply to Open Source specification? Can i avoid the need to purchase a > license or to go Open Source by, for example, launching Cygwin and > PostgreSQL as services, without any contact between my application and > Cygwin, only connecting to PostgreSQL through JDBC? Yes, this is exactly what we were going to do with a product from my previous employer. Unfortunately, there was downsizing, so the product never saw the light of day. Nevertheless, I believe that we would have been fully complying with the licensing requirements. > Cygwin home pages are unfortunately very obscure when it comes to > licensing (and they aren't replying to questions on the subject...). In > many places it says it's GPL, but from elsewhere in the site you get a > very different picture. I asked an expert and even he couldn't come up > with a certain answer right away. I found these two messages from these > archives: > > http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00118.php > http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-cygwin/2002-02/msg00119.php I can't say much more than the above -- just provide the required source (i.e., Cygwin, PostgreSQL, etc.) which is *not* your application source in this case. > .. and these look very promising. However, i'd be grateful for any more > detailed information on the subject and the conclusion. When it comes to > licenses, one can't be too careful :) Agreed! Jason ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly