On Jun 26, 2009, at 4:06 PM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:


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:

I agree with Maciej - we have gotten far ahead of ourselves here on licensing terms.


- 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.

I don't buy this but...


- 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.

there is no free lunch for commercial browsers, at least not one that's catered by Oracle,


- Therefore, if we design such an API, we need to be clear and detailed enough that it can be implemented interoperably from scratch.

and, regardless of Berkeley DB, this should be the design goal. We have all been burned by SQLite and SQL storage, and I am not going to lead another train down the same path. I was quite clear in my very first message on this topic that we are talking about a B-tree based database and not a W3C stamp of approval for Berkeley DB to be embedded in browsers.


- 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.

This is not correct. You and I can disagree, but really we should let our lawyers examine the matter.


(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


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