From: Tom Lane [mailto:t...@sss.pgh.pa.us] > The core team has considered this matter, and has concluded that it's > time to establish a firm project policy that we will not accept any code > that is known to be patent-encumbered. The long-term legal risks and > complications involved in doing that seem insurmountable, given the > community's amorphous legal nature and the existing Postgres license > wording (neither of which are open for negotiation here). Furthermore, > Postgres has always been very friendly to creation of closed-source > derivatives, but it's hard to see how inclusion of patented code would > not cause serious problems for those. The potential benefits of > accepting patented code just don't seem to justify trying to navigate > these hazards.
That decision is very unfortunate as a corporate employee on one hand, but the firm cleanness looks a bit bright to me as one developer. As a practical matter, when and where are you planning to post the project policy? How would you check and prevent patented code? Regards Takayuki Tsunakawa