Legacy approval request - The PostgreSQL Licence

[Chuck Swiger]

On Nov 30, 2009, at 10:36 AM, John Cowan wrote:
> Richard Fontana scripsit:
>> Are you confirming then that the license of PostgreSQL doesn't permit
>> sublicensing, even (somehow) by implication? I might conclude from that
>> that the license is GPL-incompatible, which is an issue that Tom tracks
>> for licenses that are approved for distribution by Fedora. (Not that
>> that has anything to do with OSI approval.) 
> 
> As far as I can see, the right to sublicense is irrelevant.
> An MIT/BSD-style license grants rights to anyone in lawful possession of
> the source code, however that possession came to be.  If Alice writes code
> under this license and sends it to Bob, then Bob can create derivative
> works and/or incorporate it into other software.  He has no need to
> reissue the code under his own license.
> 
> I think the omission of sublicensing is a distinction without a difference.

I'm largely in agreement with this point.  However, I do think the MIT license has a distinct advantage in clarity [1] on this specific issue compared to the BSD licenses, which rely on the historical practice where people combine BSDL code with other code and release the resulting derivative work under different license terms.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

[1]: "...including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software..."