For Approval: BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant

[Lawrence Rosen]

The "BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant" is obviously OSD-compliant and could
be approved on that basis. But given that there is a vibrant PostgreSQL
community that can ask for themselves, why is Chris Travers doing it for
them?

Furthermore, when the PostgreSQL community actually considers submitting a
license for approval, they may find it to be a good time to consider a
better licensing solution altogether. They could elect to use a more robust,
or at least a more popular, open source license for their next release of
PostgreSQL. That won't affect past releases of the software, of course, and
it won't affect the individual licenses already covering PostgreSQL
components, but I don't know any reason why the PostgreSQL community
couldn't distribute its entire newest release under a better license given
that the old PostgreSQL license seems to permit that very thing. All they
must continue to do is to make sure that the old license text is copied in
each copy of the software.

That's a better way to avoid license proliferation, and it encourages
PostgreSQL to reconsider their alternatives in light of the latest licensing
technology available to replace their variant of the BSD license.

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243
Skype: LawrenceRosen
Author of "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and 
                Intellectual Property Law" (Prentice Hall 2004)