Thanks for pointing this out. Looking at the actual license, it seems clear to me that they have adapted a "BSD-style" license, which is quite a change from the sleepycat license (which very explicitly mentioned a public-facing website.)
I will send a note to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the absence of other information, I think this would be interpreted as NOT applying to a website; as Joubert Nel points out, however, this issue has always revolved around the definition of "redistribute". I will forward the response here. On Wed, 2007-05-23 at 19:10 -0400, Joubert Nel wrote: > On Wed, 2007-05-23 at 18:28, Robert L. Read wrote: > > I agree with Ian. Previously, one definitely required a license for > > any public-facing commercial website. > > I have not researched any change that Oracle may or may not have made. > > Reading the Oracle licensing page > (http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/berkeley-db/htdocs/licensing.html): > > 1) Whether the application is commercial or not is immaterial to whether > you need to license. > 2) The restriction is that if you "redistribute" an application you need > a license, unless your application is distributed with source code (i.e. > "open source") > 3) They specifically state that you don't need a license if your > application is not distributed to others. > > Legally, the clarification then needs to be around what constitutes > "distribution". In the Q&A section of the licensing page they give 2 > lame examples of what would not be considered "distribution", but > unfortunately, I don't see any specific reference as to whether a > public-facing website would be considered "distribution of the > application". > > My (limited) legal knowledge would say that a public-facing website does > not constitute distribution of the application. However, if you host the > application on at a hosting company, this may be argued to be > "distributed" to this party. > > Joubert > > PS: there is an e-mail address on this licensing page; perhaps someone > wants to submit this question? > > > > > > > On Wed, 2007-05-23 at 16:06 -0400, Ian Eslick wrote: > > > On May 23, 2007, at 3:45 PM, Chris Dean wrote: > > > > > > > > > > >> Am I right that I can't use elephant+bdb in closed source commercial > > > >> application without purchasing licence? > > > > > > > > IANAL, but my reading is that if you ship a closed source product you > > > > need a license for Berkeley DB. If you have a service/web site (like > > > > Google, Yahoo, etc) my reading is that you do not need a license for > > > > Berkeley DB. > > > > > > I think that Sleepycat, now Oracle clarified that distinction and > > > that any public-facing for-profit website needs a license. Robert > > > may have more to say on this topic. > > > > > > Ian > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > elephant-devel site list > elephant-devel@common-lisp.net > http://common-lisp.net/mailman/listinfo/elephant-devel
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