Legacy approval request - BSD license (PostgreSQL variant)

[Matthew Flaschen]

Richard Fontana wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:03:42 +0100
> Dave Page <dpage at pgadmin.org> wrote:
> 
>> The PostgreSQL project (http://www.postgresql.org/) originates from
>> Michael Stonebraker's database group at UC Berkeley. The project began
>> in 1986, and was released by the Regents of the University of
>> California in 1996 under a variant of their BSD licence, a copy of
>> which is attached to this message.
> 
> This seems to be a close variation on a template license that is already
> listed by OSI as an OSI-approved license, which OSI calls "Historical
> Permission Notice and Disclaimer". It is stated here
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/historical.php
> that "This License has been voluntarily deprecated by its author." (I'd
> be curious to know who claimed to be the author of that license.) 

It is a close variation, but doesn't match, even with that license's
numerous optional clauses.  This is unfortunately quite typical of
permissive licenses.  The shorter the license, the more people seem
inclined to modify it for their own use.

That said, it should be approved, because it's OSD-compliant, and the
OSI has generally been willing to approve redundant permissive licenses
when they're actually being used.

Matt Flaschen