Tom Lane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > To clearify, I meant the psql binary becomes GPL. > > There is no such thing as "the binary becomes GPL". GPL applies to > the source code.
That's an odd thing to say. The binary is as much covered by copyright as the source and can't be distributed without satisfying the requirements of the license that covers it. The GPL requirements mean you can't distribute a binary that depends on readline without including the corresponding source code. I'm not sure that's really an onerous requirement. It just means if you're a commercial vendor selling a binary-only version of Postgres you can't link your binary-only version against readline and then distribute it. Which should be pretty obvious anyways. (The exception Tom points out might even make it legal to distribute a Linux compile of Postgres linked against readline since most Linux distributions include readline. That wasn't true when that exception was written though so you may want to check with your lawyer about that.) I think people are mixing this stuff up with the less obvious claim about programs like postgres being deemed "derivative works" of libraries like readline because they "depend" on them. Postgres doesn't really depend in any real sense on readline so I can't see that argument working in this case anyways. If there was some GPLed library that Postgres couldn't work usefully without then there might be a real need for a non-GPL'd version of that library. -- greg ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org