Re: State of PostgreSQL's drivers in Python

On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:31, Marko Kreen <[email protected]> wrote:

> Well, Josh collected bunch of anecdotes and added spin to them,
> good for getting clicks but bad for PR...
>
> - Calling licence "bizarre-hacked-up" is over the top, GPL+exception
>  is pretty common - Linux, GCC, Java.  And the OpenSSL situation
>  even requires it.
>

GPL + Exception is reasonably common, but usually the exception is written
with some understanding of the law in various jurisdictions, while the
Pyscopg license literally reads like some hacked up text without a legal
framework.  The OpenSSL exception is troubling enough:

"As a special exception, specific permission is granted for the GPLed
code in this distribition to be linked to OpenSSL and PostgreSQL libpq
without invoking GPL clause 2(b)."

The OpenSSL license is at least in conflict with section 6 of the GPL (v2),
if not a number of other sections - merely eliding 2(b) isn't going to be
sufficient.  That is then followed by a clause that says, in essence, "we
want this license to behave like the GPL in the ways that we like, and
ignore it in the ways that we don't", without being clear (in a legal
context) about what that means:

"Note that the GPL was chosen to avoid proprietary adapters based on
psycopg code. Using psycopg in a proprietary product (even bundling
psycopg with the proprietary product) is fine as long as:

 1. psycopg is called from Python only using only the provided API
    (i.e., no linking with C code and no C modules based on it); and

 2. all the other points of the GPL are respected (you offer a copy
    of psycopg's source code, and so on.)"

Given the fact that these new rights are not expressly enumerated, and the
remaining valid provisions of the GPL are also not enumerated, we are left
quite in the air as to what the license means.  You might be left thinking
that (1) is controlling, but then the license ends with:

"A non-exclusive license is available for companies that want to include
psycopg in their proprietary products without respecting the spirit of the
GPL."

What is the "spirit" of the GPL that is remaining?  This license fails to
explicitly lay out what is permitted and what is not.  Even though you state
that "Even if the GPL does not work that way when importing Python modules",
I think there are probably a lot of Python module developers out there who
rather think the GPL *does* stop people from using their modules in the way
that psycopg seems to be attempting to allow (the FSF is very clear in their
supporting documentation that shared code linked into the same memory space
taints non-GPL code).

--
Nick

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