On Jun 26, 2009, at 3:40 PM, L. David Baron wrote:
On Friday 2009-06-26 15:27 -0700, Nikunj R. Mehta wrote:
I understand the interest in using Berkeley DB in browsers provided
appropriate licensing freedom were available. I am beginning to
understand your concerns vis-à-vis Berkeley DB's license.
To be clear, I wasn't expressing any interest (or disinterest); I
was just commenting on the licensing issues. I don't have any
opinion on whether we'd want to use it if there weren't licensing
issues (nor would I be the right person to do so).
(I'm just sending this clarification to avoid anyone being under the
incorrect impression that if the license were changed the software
would promptly be incorporated into browsers. There's still the
issue of convincing browser makers that doing so is important enough
that they'd be willing to support it.)
That's roughly our position for WebKit as well. I did not mean to
raise the license issue as a showstopper, merely to point out the
following:
- If we propose an API modeled on Berkeley DB, it likely could not be
implemented by the popular open source browser engines using Berkeley
DB itself.
- If we propose an API modeled on Berkeley DB, it likely could not be
implemented by proprietary browser engines using Berkeley DB itself,
unless the developers paid licensing fees to oracle.
- Therefore, if we design such an API, we need to be clear and
detailed enough that it can be implemented interoperably from scratch.
- We also need to be clear that the implementation cost for any
browser will likely involve implementation from scratch, not just
plugging in an existing library.
(If Oracle changed the license terms, things would be different, but
I'm not asking for that and I don't think it's appropriate to ask at
this early stage.)
Regards,
Maciej
