For Approval: BSD License, PostgreSQL Variant

[Alexander Terekhov]

On 10/12/07, Chuck Swiger <chuck at codefab.com> wrote:
[...]
> it says "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification
> are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.  The act
> of running the Program is not restricted...."

Until you buy RHL. They restrict it quite thoroughly: pay up per
"installed image" you run or else...

>
> The GPL applies to people who copy, (re)distribute, and/or modify
> (aka creative derivative works) something which is licensed under the
> GPL.  Someone who does none of these things is not bound by the GPL.

To quote Lee Hollaar (who worked on Internet, copyright, and patent
issues as a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Fellow):

-----
One can tie oneself in knots trying to make sense of the GPL and
the statements made about it.  It ignores provisions of the copyright
statutes that allow the modification or redistribution of works
without permission of the copyright owner.  It talks about "derived"
works which don't seem to be the same as "derivative works."  And
the explanations from RMS and others often make little sense, as
in the case where something was a derived work until somebody wrote
a non-GPLed math library compatible with the GPLed one.
-----

regards,
alexander.

--
"PJ points out that lawyers seem to have difficulty understanding the
GPL. My main concern with GPLv3 is that - unlike v2 - non-lawyers can't
understand it either."
                           -- Anonymous Groklaw Visitor