Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, Dec 30, 2000 at 02:34:24AM +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote: If libedit could be used as an alternative to readline depending on your operating system setup then there's nothing wrong with that. NetBSD already went the other way around and made libedit compatible with readline. I had an attempt at fooling configure to look in libedit rather than readline, and all was OK except our libedit doesn't have "rl_special_prefixes" so tab-complete:105 is unhappy - I don't know what it is meant to do... Re licence business, one could argue hooks are there to use NetBSD libedit ;) Cheers, Patrick
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Added to TODO: * Allow libedit to be used in place of libreadline On Sun, Dec 31, 2000 at 01:06:40PM +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote: I've removed the statement for now, since it was being used incorrectly anyway, but for the future I suggest that NetBSD catch up, if it wants to stay compatible. Thank you, and Jaromir tells me he'll commit a fix to NetBSD within days! Happy New Year, Patrick -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, Dec 30, 2000 at 02:34:24AM +0100, Peter Eisentraut wrote: If libedit could be used as an alternative to readline depending on your operating system setup then there's nothing wrong with that. NetBSD already went the other way around and made libedit compatible with readline. I had an attempt at fooling configure to look in libedit rather than readline, and all was OK except our libedit doesn't have "rl_special_prefixes" so tab-complete:105 is unhappy - I don't know what it is meant to do... Re licence business, one could argue hooks are there to use NetBSD libedit ;) Agreed. It would be nice to have configure look for libedit or libreadline, and use either automatically. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
I do not believe that. In fact, I'll go further and say "Horsepucky!" The GPL applies to works that "contain or are derived from" a GPL'd program. Linking to a separately distributed library does not cause psql either to contain or to be derived from libreadline. Some very highly paid lawyers disagree with you. That doesn't make them right, but keep in mind that no one has defined "derivitive work" in a court of law. And RMS isn't a lawyer. I agree readline doesn't taint PG, but IMHO, the more distance between the GPL and PG, the better. OK. For the last time, here's the story about linking, as agreed upon by almost damn everyone: a) dynamic linking is kosher, as of GPL2 b) static linking is OK, but you may NOT redistribute resulting libraries. I hope the above will put the discussion about readline to an end, as Postgres does not distribute statically linked binaries. I read through this large thread, and it is good to see that readline is not an issue for us. Only binary distributions that statically link in libreadline are a problem. If people feel that this is a significant restriction, we can start distributing libedit, or the binary packager can link libedit into their binary. I hesitate to add the libedit code to our already large distribution, and I think several others agreed. I am concerned about RMS's heavy-handed agenda in regards to the GPL, but it appears he is not irrational in his requirements. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Peter Bierman wrote: At 7:15 PM -0500 12/29/00, Tom Lane wrote: Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Rasmus Lerdorf warned one of you guys that simply linking to GNU readline can contaminate code with the GPL. Readline isn't LGPL which permits linking without lincense issues, it is GPL which means that if you link to it, you must be GPL as well. I do not believe that. In fact, I'll go further and say "Horsepucky!" The GPL applies to works that "contain or are derived from" a GPL'd program. Linking to a separately distributed library does not cause psql either to contain or to be derived from libreadline. Some very highly paid lawyers disagree with you. That doesn't make them right, but keep in mind that no one has defined "derivitive work" in a court of law. And RMS isn't a lawyer. I agree readline doesn't taint PG, but IMHO, the more distance between the GPL and PG, the better. OK. For the last time, here's the story about linking, as agreed upon by almost damn everyone: a) dynamic linking is kosher, as of GPL2 b) static linking is OK, but you may NOT redistribute resulting libraries. I hope the above will put the discussion about readline to an end, as Postgres does not distribute statically linked binaries. -alex
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
* The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 14:11] wrote: On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: FreeBSD has a freely available library called 'libedit' that could be shipped with postgresql, it's under the BSD license. Yes, that is our solution if we have a real problem here. Is there a reason *not* to move towards that for v7.2 so that the functions we are making optional with readline are automatic? Since we could then ship the code, we could make it a standard vs optional "feature" ... My thought would be to put 'make history feaure standard using libedit' onto the TODO list and take it from there ... I doubt I'd have the time to do it, but if you guys want to use libedit it'd probably be a good idea at least to reduce the amount of potential GPL tainting in the source code. -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, The Hermit Hacker wrote: On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: FreeBSD has a freely available library called 'libedit' that could be shipped with postgresql, it's under the BSD license. Yes, that is our solution if we have a real problem here. Is there a reason *not* to move towards that for v7.2 so that the functions we are making optional with readline are automatic? Since we could then ship the code, we could make it a standard vs optional "feature" ... Also, it might be beneficial to _not_ link postmaster/postgres against libreadline - I don't see where either of those programs need it - sure, psql, but the backends? ... morannon:~ldd `which postgres` libz.so.1 = /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x40019000) libcrypt.so.1 = /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x40028000) libnsl.so.1 = /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x40055000) libdl.so.2 = /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4006c000) libm.so.6 = /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4007) libreadline.so.3 = /lib/libreadline.so.3 (0x4008d000) libtermcap.so.2 = /usr/lib/libtermcap.so.2 (0x400b5000) libncurses.so.4 = /lib/libncurses.so.4 (0x400b9000) libc.so.6 = /lib/libc.so.6 (0x400ff000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 = /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x4000) morannon:~ldd `which psql` libpq.so.2.1 = /usr/lib/libpq.so.2.1 (0x40019000) libz.so.1 = /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x40028000) libcrypt.so.1 = /lib/libcrypt.so.1 (0x40037000) libnsl.so.1 = /lib/libnsl.so.1 (0x40064000) libdl.so.2 = /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x4007b000) libm.so.6 = /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4007f000) libreadline.so.3 = /lib/libreadline.so.3 (0x4009d000) libtermcap.so.2 = /usr/lib/libtermcap.so.2 (0x400c4000) libncurses.so.4 = /lib/libncurses.so.4 (0x400c8000) libc.so.6 = /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4010e000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 = /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x4000) postgres/postmaster very likely don't need either libreadline, nor libncurses... Unless there's something I'm missing. -- Dominic J. Eidson "Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli --- http://www.the-infinite.org/ http://www.the-infinite.org/~dominic/
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Alfred Perlstein wrote: * The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 14:11] wrote: On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: FreeBSD has a freely available library called 'libedit' that could be shipped with postgresql, it's under the BSD license. Yes, that is our solution if we have a real problem here. Is there a reason *not* to move towards that for v7.2 so that the functions we are making optional with readline are automatic? Since we could then ship the code, we could make it a standard vs optional "feature" ... My thought would be to put 'make history feaure standard using libedit' onto the TODO list and take it from there ... I doubt I'd have the time to do it, but if you guys want to use libedit it'd probably be a good idea at least to reduce the amount of potential GPL tainting in the source code. I'm all for trying to take it on ... Bruce, put me down for it ...
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, Dec 23, 2000 at 08:42:43AM -0800, Alfred Perlstein wrote: FreeBSD has a freely available library called 'libedit' that could be shipped with postgresql, it's under the BSD license. If you have access to a FreeBSD box see the editline(3) manpage, or go to: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=editlineapropos=0sektion=0manpath=FreeBSD+4.2-RELEASEformat=html Good plan - AFAIK there isn't anything gnu readline can do that libedit can't.. Patrick
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Lamar Owen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: How different is the feature set? I was going to ask the same thing. If it's an exact replacement then OK, but I do not want to put up with non-Emacs-compatible keybindings, to mention just one likely issue. The whole thing really strikes me as make-work anyway. Linux is GPL'd; does anyone want to argue that we shouldn't run on Linux? Since we are not including libreadline in our distribution, there is NO reason to worry about using it when it's available. Wanting to find a replacement purely because of the license amounts to license bigotry, IMHO. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
* Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 15:43] wrote: Lamar Owen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: How different is the feature set? I was going to ask the same thing. If it's an exact replacement then OK, but I do not want to put up with non-Emacs-compatible keybindings, to mention just one likely issue. The whole thing really strikes me as make-work anyway. Linux is GPL'd; does anyone want to argue that we shouldn't run on Linux? Since we are not including libreadline in our distribution, there is NO reason to worry about using it when it's available. Wanting to find a replacement purely because of the license amounts to license bigotry, IMHO. Rasmus Lerdorf warned one of you guys that simply linking to GNU readline can contaminate code with the GPL. Readline isn't LGPL which permits linking without lincense issues, it is GPL which means that if you link to it, you must be GPL as well. -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually, IMHO, the pro to moving to libedit is that we could include it as part of the distribution and make history a *standard* feature How big is libedit? If it's tiny, that might be a good argument ... but I don't want to see us bulking up our distro with something that people could and should get directly from its source. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Tom Lane wrote: Lamar Owen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: How different is the feature set? I was going to ask the same thing. If it's an exact replacement then OK, but I do not want to put up with non-Emacs-compatible keybindings, to mention just one likely issue. The whole thing really strikes me as make-work anyway. Linux is GPL'd; does anyone want to argue that we shouldn't run on Linux? Since we are not including libreadline in our distribution, there is NO reason to worry about using it when it's available. Wanting to find a replacement purely because of the license amounts to license bigotry, IMHO. Actually, IMHO, the pro to moving to libedit is that we could include it as part of the distribution and make history a *standard* feature ... licensing started the thread, but I think its gone beyond that were we have a way of providing an feature that is currently option as part of the system as a whole ... "one less package that you need to install" ...
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
thelab# du -sk libedit
402 libedit
thelab# ls
Makefileel.hmap.c refresh.h tokenizer.c
TESTemacs.c map.h search.ctokenizer.h
chared.chist.c parse.c search.htty.c
chared.hhist.h parse.h sig.c tty.h
common.chistory.c prompt.csig.h vi.c
editline.3 key.c prompt.hsys.h
editrc.5key.h read.c term.c
el.cmakelistrefresh.c term.h
its tiny ...
we'd be adding a whole 79k to the 6meg distribution:
ls -lt /tmp/libedit.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 scrappy wheel 79025 Dec 29 20:38 /tmp/libedit.tar.gz
and providing all the functionality that ppl who don't have libreadline
already installed don't get ...
On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Tom Lane wrote:
The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Actually, IMHO, the pro to moving to libedit is that we could include it
as part of the distribution and make history a *standard* feature
How big is libedit? If it's tiny, that might be a good argument ...
but I don't want to see us bulking up our distro with something that
people could and should get directly from its source.
regards, tom lane
Marc G. Fournier ICQ#7615664 IRC Nick: Scrappy
Systems Administrator @ hub.org
primary: [EMAIL PROTECTED] secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
* Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 16:01] wrote: The Hermit Hacker writes: Is there a reason *not* to move towards that for v7.2 so that the functions we are making optional with readline are automatic? Since we could then ship the code, we could make it a standard vs optional "feature" ... My thought would be to put 'make history feaure standard using libedit' onto the TODO list and take it from there ... In my mind this is a pointless waste of developer time because there is no problem to solve here. I'm sure we all have better things to do than porting libedit to a dozen systems and then explaining to users why the tarball is bloated and their carefully composed readline configuration doesn't work anymore. If there is something functionally wrong with Readline then let's talk about it, but let's not replace it with something because some PHP dude said that RMS said something. From http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License. My understanding (from the recent discussion) is that Postgresql has certain dependancies on libreadline and won't compile/work without it, if true this effectively forces anyone wishing to derive a viable commercial product based on Postgresql to switch to the GPL or port to libedit anyway. If readline is completely optional then there's really no problem. -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Rasmus Lerdorf warned one of you guys that simply linking to GNU readline can contaminate code with the GPL. Readline isn't LGPL which permits linking without lincense issues, it is GPL which means that if you link to it, you must be GPL as well. I do not believe that. In fact, I'll go further and say "Horsepucky!" The GPL applies to works that "contain or are derived from" a GPL'd program. Linking to a separately distributed library does not cause psql either to contain or to be derived from libreadline. If we distributed binary executables that contained statically linked copies of libreadline, then indeed we'd have a problem. We do not, AFAIK, and we have no intention of doing so in the future. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
* Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 16:38] wrote: The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Actually, IMHO, the pro to moving to libedit is that we could include it as part of the distribution and make history a *standard* feature How big is libedit? If it's tiny, that might be a good argument ... but I don't want to see us bulking up our distro with something that people could and should get directly from its source. ~350k -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My understanding (from the recent discussion) is that Postgresql has certain dependancies on libreadline and won't compile/work without it, Then you're working from a misconception. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
* The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 17:06] wrote: On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Tom Lane wrote: Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My understanding (from the recent discussion) is that Postgresql has certain dependancies on libreadline and won't compile/work without it, Then you're working from a misconception. I think the misconception that he might be working on here is the point someone brought up that when configure runs, it is adding -lreadline to the backend compile, even though that I don't think there is any reason for doing such? I thought psql required libreadline, I'm not sure who said it. If nothing requires it then there's not much point in moving to libedit from a devel cost/benifit analysis. -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Tom Lane wrote: Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My understanding (from the recent discussion) is that Postgresql has certain dependancies on libreadline and won't compile/work without it, Then you're working from a misconception. I think the misconception that he might be working on here is the point someone brought up that when configure runs, it is adding -lreadline to the backend compile, even though that I don't think there is any reason for doing such?
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, Dec 29, 2000 at 07:15:05PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Rasmus Lerdorf warned one of you guys that simply linking to GNU readline can contaminate code with the GPL. Readline isn't LGPL which permits linking without lincense issues, it is GPL which means that if you link to it, you must be GPL as well. I do not believe that. In fact, I'll go further and say "Horsepucky!" The GPL applies to works that "contain or are derived from" a GPL'd program. Linking to a separately distributed library does not cause psql either to contain or to be derived from libreadline. RMS already made a big stink about this, claiming that BeOS's use of an emulation layer to link to some GPL'ed network drivers was enough to force the GPL'ing of the kernel. Be backed down (and re-licensed the code from the source, IIRC). Sun recently released a "driver porting kit" that allowed similar drivers to be used in Solaris. There was some outcry on Slashdot, but I'm not sure how it ended up. I wouldn't mind having someone tell RMS to fuck off, though. -- Adam Haberlach|A cat spends her life conflicted between a [EMAIL PROTECTED] |deep, passionate, and profound desire for http://www.newsnipple.com |fish and an equally deep, passionate, and '88 EX500 |profound desire to avoid getting wet.
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: someone brought up that when configure runs, it is adding -lreadline to the backend compile, even though that I don't think there is any reason for doing such? There isn't --- configure is just sloppy in that it supplies the same library list for all programs we build. (This might be a fair amount of work to change; never looked at it.) However, I don't see what that has to do with the licensing argument. We stand or fall on psql's use of libreadline, and having useless dependencies from other executables doesn't alter anything that I can see. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Alfred Perlstein wrote: * The Hermit Hacker [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001229 17:06] wrote: On Fri, 29 Dec 2000, Tom Lane wrote: Alfred Perlstein [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: My understanding (from the recent discussion) is that Postgresql has certain dependancies on libreadline and won't compile/work without it, Then you're working from a misconception. I think the misconception that he might be working on here is the point someone brought up that when configure runs, it is adding -lreadline to the backend compile, even though that I don't think there is any reason for doing such? I thought psql required libreadline, I'm not sure who said it. Purely optional feature(s) .. if readline isn't found, they aren't enabled ...
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
The Hermit Hacker writes: Actually, IMHO, the pro to moving to libedit is that we could include it as part of the distribution and make history a *standard* feature History already is a standard feature, you just need to have readline installed. In a world of source code users need to cope with package dependencies, and it's not like readline is the most esoteric package in the world. Gradually adding operating system level things into a package purely to convenience some users is a way to piss of the users at large because you're overriding their operating system setup. If libedit could be used as an alternative to readline depending on your operating system setup then there's nothing wrong with that. NetBSD already went the other way around and made libedit compatible with readline. But given that readline availability during the last five years was apparently just fine I don't understand this discussion at all. -- Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://yi.org/peter-e/
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: But given that readline availability during the last five years was apparently just fine I don't understand this discussion at all. Indeed. You could make a better case that we shouldn't be including in our distro the ODBC driver (LGPL) or the several contrib modules that are GPL'd than that psql's optional use of libreadline means we are in violation of GPL. I'm okay with including those things because of the GPL's "mere aggregation" exception --- none of the rest of the system uses any of those modules, so our inclusion of them in the distro looks like mere aggregation to me. But it's a much closer judgment call than the readline situation. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Peter Eisentraut wrote: The Hermit Hacker writes: Actually, IMHO, the pro to moving to libedit is that we could include it as part of the distribution and make history a *standard* feature History already is a standard feature, you just need to have readline installed. So, history is optional depending on whether or not readline is installed ... if it was standard, it would be enabled regardless of any other dependencies ...
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If libedit could be used as an alternative to readline depending on your operating system setup then there's nothing wrong with that. I have no objection to being able to work with either one, if someone's excited about making that happen. I'd still think it a waste of effort, but as long as it's not my effort I can hardly complain... regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Adam Haberlach [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: RMS already made a big stink about this, claiming that BeOS's use of an emulation layer to link to some GPL'ed network drivers was enough to force the GPL'ing of the kernel. Did BeOS make distributions that included the GPL'd code? Was the GPL'd code essential for useful use of their system? We can answer "no" to both of those points for Postgres vs. readline, so the Be case doesn't look like precedent to me. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Fri, Dec 29, 2000 at 08:46:40PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Adam Haberlach [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: RMS already made a big stink about this, claiming that BeOS's use of an emulation layer to link to some GPL'ed network drivers was enough to force the GPL'ing of the kernel. Did BeOS make distributions that included the GPL'd code? Yes. IIRC (this happened about the time I got here more then two years ago), Be released binary versions of the drivers with the standard distribution as well as source to them as sample code. RMS's main claim was that although the GPL'ed source was released as source, it had to link to the kernel to be useful, and therefore could not be distributed without source to the kernel. Was the GPL'd code essential for useful use of their system? No. -- Adam Haberlach|A cat spends her life conflicted between a [EMAIL PROTECTED] |deep, passionate, and profound desire for http://www.newsnipple.com |fish and an equally deep, passionate, and '88 EX500 |profound desire to avoid getting wet.
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If there is something functionally wrong with Readline then let's talk about it, but let's not replace it with something because some PHP dude said that RMS said something. ncftp used to be for non-commercial use only and had hooks to be linked against readline. RMS threatened legal action, which caused the developer to change the license to GPL, which was what RMS wanted. So, whatever your opinion of his reasoning and motives, etc., it is undoubtedly RMS's intention to use readline as a point of leverage to get projects to go GPL. Personally, I agree with him. Many don't. Mike.
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
But given that readline availability during the last five years was apparently just fine I don't understand this discussion at all. I agree with Peter and others on this topic, though the occasional discussion helps to clarify things... - Thomas
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On 29 Dec 2000, Michael Alan Dorman wrote: Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: If there is something functionally wrong with Readline then let's talk about it, but let's not replace it with something because some PHP dude said that RMS said something. ncftp used to be for non-commercial use only and had hooks to be linked against readline. RMS threatened legal action, which caused the developer to change the license to GPL, which was what RMS wanted. Problem with ncftp was developers distributing binaries commercially which were linked to libreadline. As I said before, postgres doesn't have this problem since neither RPMs nor other binaries do that.
[HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existance of GNU readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a GNU license. Obviously, we could remove readline hooks and ship a BSD line editing library, but does this make any sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me, but he was quite certain. Our ODBC library is also GNU licensed, but I am told this is not a problem because it doesn't link into the backend. However, neither does readline. However, readline does link into psql. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Bruce Momjian writes:
Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existance of GNU
readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a
GNU license.
This sort of thing is complete nonsense.
By the same logic you could argue that the system("cp template1 ...")
calls could force us to a GNU license, because 'cp' is from GNU fileutils.
--
Peter Eisentraut [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://yi.org/peter-e/
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Bruce Momjian writes:
Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existance of GNU
readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a
GNU license.
This sort of thing is complete nonsense.
By the same logic you could argue that the system("cp template1 ...")
calls could force us to a GNU license, because 'cp' is from GNU fileutils.
Well, his issue was that 'cp' is not in the binary, while readline
_could_ be in the binary. My issue is that we only optionally link
in the library. We don't actually ship the library with our code.
Honestly, it made no sense to me either, and if it hadn't been Rasmus, I
would have written it off immediately.
--
Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue
+ Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existance of GNU readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a GNU license. Obviously, we could remove readline hooks and ship a BSD line editing library, but does this make any sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me, but he was quite certain. Unfortunately he's right, since GPL software is incompatible with any non-GPL software. Stallman publically admitted that he intentionally released readline under GPL, not LGPL, to force more people into GPLing their code.
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existence of GNU readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a GNU license. Obviously, we could remove readline hooks and ship a BSD line editing library, but does this make any sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me, but he was quite certain. Unfortunately he's right, since GPL software is incompatible with any non-GPL software. Stallman publicly admitted that he intentionally released readline under GPL, not LGPL, to force more people into GPLing their code. OK, but does shipping our code with hooks obligate us? We don't ship readline. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
On Sat, 23 Dec 2000, Bruce Momjian wrote: OK, but does shipping our code with hooks obligate us? We don't ship readline. Oh, oops. I didn't know readline wasn't in the postgres tree. Then, obviously, distribution of .tar.gz does not obligate postgres to anything, HOWEVER, the problem arises with distribution of binaries (.rpm and others) which are linked against libreadline _statically_ (basically, we can't do it). Our RPM distrib is linked dynamically, but I don't know about other binaries... From my understanding of GPL, if it is linked dynamically, we are exempt since it does not constitute a 'derived package'. -alex
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Bruce Momjian wrote: Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existance of GNU readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a GNU license. Obviously, we could remove readline hooks and ship a BSD line editing library, but does this make any sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me, but he was quite certain. The sole psql program could be GNU-licenced... just my 2p. Fabrice
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
* Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] [001223 06:59] wrote: Rasmus Lerdorf, the big PHP developer, told me that the existance of GNU readline hooks in our source tree could cause RMS/GNU to force us to a GNU license. Obviously, we could remove readline hooks and ship a BSD line editing library, but does this make any sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me, but he was quite certain. Our ODBC library is also GNU licensed, but I am told this is not a problem because it doesn't link into the backend. However, neither does readline. However, readline does link into psql. FreeBSD has a freely available library called 'libedit' that could be shipped with postgresql, it's under the BSD license. If you have access to a FreeBSD box see the editline(3) manpage, or go to: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=editlineapropos=0sektion=0manpath=FreeBSD+4.2-RELEASEformat=html -- -Alfred Perlstein - [[EMAIL PROTECTED]|[EMAIL PROTECTED]] "I have the heart of a child; I keep it in a jar on my desk."
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
FreeBSD has a freely available library called 'libedit' that could be shipped with postgresql, it's under the BSD license. Yes, that is our solution if we have a real problem here. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: OK, but does shipping our code with hooks obligate us? It does not; if RMS thinks it does, he's full of it. If push actually comes to shove, I'd simply remove the readline hooks, but the entire issue is nonsense. regards, tom lane
Re: [HACKERS] GNU readline and BSD license
Bruce Momjian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: OK, but does shipping our code with hooks obligate us? It does not; if RMS thinks it does, he's full of it. If push actually comes to shove, I'd simply remove the readline hooks, but the entire issue is nonsense. That is my opinion too. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us [EMAIL PROTECTED] | (610) 853-3000 + If your life is a hard drive, | 830 Blythe Avenue + Christ can be your backup.| Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026
