From: Chris Travers [mailto:chris.trav...@adjust.com] > For example a competitor of yours could copy the relevant pieces of the > PostgreSQL code, refactor this into a library, and then use it as a > derivative work and this would be entirely within the copyright license. > They could then license that library out, and you could not use your patents > or copyrights to stop them. As such, a patent license would probably be > very similar from a business perspective to a global public grant even though > the two strike me as something which might not offer protection in the case > of a clean-room implementation. > > I certainly wouldn't be opposed to accepting patents where a license was > granted to the PostgreSQL Global Developer Group and the community as a > whole to make full use of the patents in any way covered by the copyright > license of PostgreSQL (i.e where any use that involves utilizing the > copyright license for PostgreSQL extends to the patents in question). But > I am not sure that a business case would be able to be made for releasing > any patents under such a license since it means that for anyone else, using > the patents even in commercial software becomes trivial and enforcement > would become very difficult indeed.
It looks like you are right in that we can't restrict the use of patents in PostgreSQL code to PostgreSQL-based software... Re-reading Apache License 2.0, it doesn't have any restriction either. But, like Apache License, I think the patents can be useful to prevent litigation. Regards Takayuki Tsunakawa