Thread: postgreSQL licenseing
Hi, We are planning to use the Postgre SQL in one of our commercial products. I am aware that PostgreSQL is distributed under BSD licence. Can someone please answer the following questions. 1) If we just ship the PostgreSQL binaries in our product(without source code), do we need to include the BSD licence text anywhere? 2) Does PostgreSQL software makes use of any other libraries/softwares? If yes, what are they? 3) Are there any patents applied/granted for PostgreSQL software? If yes, what are the patent numbers? Thanks in advance, Sathish
Tiptur, Sathish (MED) wrote: > 1) If we just ship the PostgreSQL binaries in our product(without > source code), do we need to include the BSD licence text anywhere? Yes. The license says "... provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies." Note that it doesn't say "provided that the notice is displayed in annoying ways", but it needs to be accessible in reasonable ways. > 2) Does PostgreSQL software makes use of any other > libraries/softwares? If yes, what are they? That depends on your platform and compilation options. See the installation instructions for what software is required and optional. > 3) Are there any patents applied/granted for PostgreSQL software? If > yes, what are the patent numbers? I don't think anyone knows the final answer to that.
Hello How do I display the field(s) used to create an index, as in "CREATE INDEX <index name> ON <table name> (<field1> [, <field2>...])" ? I tried with psql with -E option and if I execute the query independently then it is showing the index names and a index definition like CREATE INDEX ON..... from which I believe psql is getting column names? On what what criteria it is fetching the column information...the only thing i can believe is that the column names are within ()...Am I true? Karam __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
Karam Chand <karam_chand03@yahoo.com> writes:
> How do I display the field(s) used to create an index,
The pg_get_index_def function is the easiest way.
regards, tom lane
Peter Eisentraut wrote: >>1) If we just ship the PostgreSQL binaries in our product(without >>source code), do we need to include the BSD licence text anywhere? > > Yes. The license says "... provided that the above copyright notice and > this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies." > Note that it doesn't say "provided that the notice is displayed in > annoying ways", but it needs to be accessible in reasonable ways. Which of the following count as "accessible in a reasonable way"? 1. in a separate text file, by itself (ala GPL's COPYING), but quite deep within several levels of subdirectories (e.g. under bin/ or etc/misc/license/). 2. in a binary (e.g. postgres.exe), that is, we modified the source code slightly so that the copyright text is embedded in the final executable. The executable is not compressed, so a "strings postgres" command could view the copyright text. 3. in a separate program file (which is included along with postgres in the distribution), in the Help > About menu or the splash screen, e.g. "Portions of this program are licensed under the BSD License: PostgreSQL, ..." 4. Only the URL to the license text is displayed, e.g. http://www.mydomain.com/etc/license/BSD.txt. -- dave
David Garamond wrote: > Which of the following count as "accessible in a reasonable way"? The usual means that I have seen of making copyright licences accessible are to: 1) List all copyright clauses in the manual, under a single chapter. This is effectively an inventory of the licenced worksused in the product. 2) List all copyright clauses in a file such as "licences.txt", which is also an inventory of licenced works used in theproduct. 3) Display all copyright clauses in the log file of a daemon. 4) Display the copyright clauses in the scrolling portion of a splash screen (ick!) or in the Help->About screen of a GUI Having the licence hidden somewhere - eg as unused strings in a binary - doesn't seem to me to be "accessible in a reasonableway". Would you feel it was reasonable for a vendor to publish the instruction manual in this way? Just by two bits worth Alex Satrapa
Hello I googled on "pg_get_index_def" and it returned 0 pages. Where can I get more information on the function...and in general docs on similar functions. Karam --- Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Karam Chand <karam_chand03@yahoo.com> writes: > > How do I display the field(s) used to create an > index, > > The pg_get_index_def function is the easiest way. > > regards, tom lane __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
Sorry... the function is pg_get_indexdef and i found the docs for it. Thanks . Karam --- Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote: > Karam Chand <karam_chand03@yahoo.com> writes: > > How do I display the field(s) used to create an > index, > > The pg_get_index_def function is the easiest way. > > regards, tom lane __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Get better spam protection with Yahoo! Mail. http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
David Garamond wrote: > Peter Eisentraut wrote: > >>> 1) If we just ship the PostgreSQL binaries in our product(without >>> source code), do we need to include the BSD licence text anywhere? >> >> Yes. The license says "... provided that the above copyright notice >> and this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all >> copies." Note that it doesn't say "provided that the notice is >> displayed in annoying ways", but it needs to be accessible in >> reasonable ways. > > Which of the following count as "accessible in a reasonable way"? I am NOT a lawyer. However, I'm a big fan of BSD-style licenses, so here's my opinion on what's good and what's not: > 1. in a separate text file, by itself (ala GPL's COPYING), but quite > deep within several levels of subdirectories (e.g. under bin/ or > etc/misc/license/). This (legally) is acceptable, I would think. But it defeats the _spirit_ of the license, which is to give credit back to the original developers. I would consider doing this a cop-out to avoid legal problems without _really_ following the intent of the license. > 2. in a binary (e.g. postgres.exe), that is, we modified the source code > slightly so that the copyright text is embedded in the final executable. > The executable is not compressed, so a "strings postgres" command could > view the copyright text. Same opinion as #1. > 3. in a separate program file (which is included along with postgres in > the distribution), in the Help > About menu or the splash screen, e.g. > "Portions of this program are licensed under the BSD License: > PostgreSQL, ..." I think this is more along the lines of what the license was intended for. In the case of a non-graphical program, you could have a switch (program --license) which produces the text. > 4. Only the URL to the license text is displayed, e.g. > http://www.mydomain.com/etc/license/BSD.txt. This isn't bad either. I think the point is that people get to know where the software came from without having to become Sherlock Holmes. 3 & 4 handle this pretty well. I don't think the license was ever intended to overburdon you by forcing your splash screen or home page to display credit. Legally, it would seem to me that all 4 are OK. But, of course, all of these are my opinion. If you're worried about legal issues, you should consult a REAL lawyer. -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com