[Bizgres-general] Bizgres MPP and PostGIS

[David Fetter]

On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 04:50:43PM -0700, Luke Lonergan wrote:
> Markus, Hannu,
> 
> On 9/21/06 2:49 AM, "Markus Schaber" <schabi at logix-tt.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hannu Krosing wrote:
> > 
> >> IANAL, but, as GPL is all about distribution, you have this problem only
> >> if you want to distribute the result.
> > 
> > So, potential users have two possibilities:
> > 
> > - Distribute PostGIS as source, and compile it against Bizgres on the
> > users site (given that the user has enough of the Bizgres source to
> > compile against)
> > 
> > - Distribute the binaries that are compiled against a matching
> > PostgreSQL, and load them into Bizgres. (I don't know whether this
> > binary compatibility is given.)
> 
> The complication as I understand it is that Postgres goes through a patch
> process to get the PostGIS functionality into it.  At that point, there is
> PostGIS source code in the merged entity, which transfers the GPL
> restrictions to the source.  At this point, any compiled product is subject
> to those restrictions, which force the inclusion of the source code and the
> inability to charge for the resulting binaries.
> 
> I think that this doesn't preclude an arrangement with the holder of the GPL
> license for a special version that we could incorporate into Bizgres MPP.
> 
> We are interested in supporting PostGIS with MPP because the operations it
> performs would likely benefit greatly from the parallelism of the MPP
> kernel.  The main impediment so far has been our limited development
> personnel - all are focused on features desired by our data warehousing
> customers.
> 
> There are a couple of ways we can proceed if we have enough demand for
> PostGIS MPP:
> A) We can make a side arrangement with the PostGIS developers to support a
> bundle, perhaps even have them do the porting work.
> B) Perhaps we can perform a service that compiles the code for each PostGIS
> MPP customer, places the source code in escrow and we charge an annual
> maintenance fee.  I'm not sure if this is still compatible with GPL, but it
> seems similar to RedHat and other's approaches.  The biggest difference is
> that the source code is not made available to the general public as it is
> with RedHat, but only to the support customers through the limited
> conditions of an escrow.
> 
> Of these two, I far prefer (A).  Even better would be to have the
> PostGIS people change their license to LGPL or BSD.

Last time I talked with the PostGIS people, they said they're
licensing PostGIS under the GPL because they want to get paid for
non-GPL deployments.  I suspect that large enough a wad of cash up
front and/or payments into the future would do it.  How much does
Greenplum or a Greenplum-led consortium have in the kitty?

Oh, and hi. :)

Cheers,
Dave.
-- 
David Fetter <david at fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778        AIM: dfetter666
                              Skype: davidfetter

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