Re: State of PostgreSQL's drivers in Python

On 08/02/2010 17:41, Nicholas Bastin wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 8, 2010 at 10:31, Marko Kreen <[email protected]
> <mailto:[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).
>
I think that the spirit of the license is: this is free software as the
GPL says.

A pure GPL is not possible because  psycopg  links OpenSSL and libpq, so
here it is the exception that allows the use and distribution of psycopg
with this libraries.

If this spirit is not so clear reading the LICENSE file, please suggest
a better way to express this concept.

I'm sure the authors will appreciate your contribute.


Gigi

---
Pierluigi Di Nunzio
Studio Associato Di Nunzio e Di Gregorio
Via Maria Vittoria, 2
10123 Torino

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