Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> writes: > Clever idea, pity we can't use it (what's the bet it's patented?). I'd > wager anything beyond simple compression is patented by someone.
You're in for a rude awakening: even "simple compression" is anything but simple. As I said, it's a minefield of patents. I recall reading a very long statement by one of the zlib developers (Jean-loup Gailly, I think) explaining exactly how they had threaded their way through that minefield, and why they were different enough from half-a-dozen similar-looking patented methods to not infringe any of them. I feel fairly confident that zlib is patent-free, first because they did their homework and second because they've now been out there and highly visible for a good long time without getting sued. I've got no such confidence in any other random algorithm you might choose --- in fact, I'm not at all sure that pg_lzcompress.c is safe. If we were aggressively trying to avoid patent risks we might well consider dropping pg_lzcompress.c and using zlib exclusively. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster