Thread: PostrgreSQL Commercial restrictions?

I am not a lawyer and cannot evaluate your risk profile and usage but:

Simply connecting to, creating objects, and running queries against
PostgreSQL does not encumber your external application at all.  The database
schema you create (the objects inside the database) is not affected.

Deploying PostgreSQL may be restricted but in the general case if the
installation of PostgreSQL is totally independent of anything your
application does you have no problem.  I believe your application can cause
PostgreSQL to be installed without issue as well.

Where the PostgreSQL license comes into play is if you make alterations to
the PostgreSQL database itself - the underlying engine implemented in C and
to some degree the supporting utilities written in various languages.
Anything contributed to the core PostgreSQL project becomes open-source but
you are permitted to create a commercial port of PostgreSQL with proprietary
code under terms different from those for the core PostgreSQL project.  As
your application is most likely NOT one of these ports I'll stop here.

If you want better answers you need to be more open and specific with your
questions.  If you cannot do that on a community forum then you will need to
hire a lawyer (which since you want to profit from your application you
should probably do anyway).

Regardless, and especially if you do not hire a lawyer, you should research
other companies that provide professional PostgreSQL services as well as
ports of the database to get a feel for what the PostgreSQL license has
allowed them to do.

In short the license is very commerce friendly and because the database is
often physically and logically separate from your application (you simply
use the database instead of trying to offer database functionality directly
to your users) the degree of encumbering that the database places on the
application is generally minimal if any at all.

David J.




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On 08/07/2013 08:23 AM, Eliseo Viola wrote:
> Hello.
> I have been reading the -http://opensource.org/licenses/postgresql- to
> know if i can use PostgreSQL in a Privative Closed Commercial Software
> (The worst of the worst :P ). in the company where i work.
> Is there any restriction or limit to do it.?


http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/FAQ#What_is_the_license_of_PostgreSQL.3F


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Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@gmail.com

On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 8:23 AM, Eliseo Viola <eliseo.viola@vodemia.com> wrote:
> I have been reading the -http://opensource.org/licenses/postgresql- to know
> if i can use PostgreSQL in a Privative Closed Commercial Software  (The
> worst of the worst :P ). in the company where i work.
> Is there any restriction or limit to do it.?

I am not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice. That said, I have ever
reason to believe that the licensing is the most liberal practically
possible. Distributing Postgres with your proprietary application
should not be a problem.


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Regards,
Peter Geoghegan

On Aug 7, 2013, at 8:23 AM, Eliseo Viola <eliseo.viola@vodemia.com> wrote:

> Hello.
> I have been reading the -http://opensource.org/licenses/postgresql- to know if i can use PostgreSQL in a Privative
ClosedCommercial Software  (The worst of the worst :P ). in the company where i work. 
> Is there any restriction or limit to do it.?

There isn't, really. It's very liberally licensed, and you're free to distribute it.

However, as someone who writes "private closed commercial software" that uses postgresql as a backend I'd fairly
stronglysuggest that you at least provide end users the opportunity to use their own installation of postgresql if they
wantto. "Hiding" the existence of postgresql in your package doesn't magically make it as low maintenance as sqlite, so
userswill still know it's there and might want to point your app at their supported, tuned installation instead. (And
maywant to fire up psql to see what's in there - you'll get happier customers if you put connection info and a database
schemadiagram in your docs than if you try to hide your use of a database). 

I no longer distribute postgresql bundled with the app at all. On platforms with decent package managers I just ship a
packagethat relies on the OS-installed postgresql. For other environments I provide a package for the app, and a
separatepackage with postgresql. 

If you do decide to distribute postgresql with your app (by bundling the enterprisedb installer as part of a windows
appinstaller, say) be very careful that it's configured to not clash with a used-installed copy of postgresql. 

Cheers,
  Steve

Richard,

* Richard Broersma (richard.broersma@gmail.com) wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 8:43 AM, David Johnston <polobo@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Where the PostgreSQL license comes into play is if you make alterations to
> > the PostgreSQL database itself - the underlying engine implemented in C and
> > to some degree the supporting utilities written in various languages.
> > Anything contributed to the core PostgreSQL project becomes open-source but
> > you are permitted to create a commercial port of PostgreSQL with
> > proprietary
> > code under terms different from those for the core PostgreSQL project.  As
> > your application is most likely NOT one of these ports I'll stop here.
> >
>
> That my be true for MySQL, but I don't think the applies to PostgreSQL.
> Several companies have forked PostgreSQL into their own proprietary product.

You made the same mistake I did in reading this.  The statement that
David made is correct, but you have to read it carefully; here it is
with emphasis:

"Anything *contributed* to the core PostgreSQL project becomes
open-source but..."

In other words, if you send us a patch and we like it and add it to PG,
it becomes part of PG which is released under the BSD license.  Were
something submitted under some other license, it'd be hard to call it a
contribution to PG and it'd be pretty unlikely to get committed anyway.

    Thanks,

        Stephen