Subject: Re: Sleepycat Software DB 2.x library licensing vs. NetBSD
To: NetBSD-current Discussion List <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@most.weird.com>
List: current-users
Date: 09/18/1998 04:04:31
[ On Thu, September 17, 1998 at 20:58:51 (-0600), Justin T. Gibbs wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Sleepycat Software DB 2.x library licensing vs. NetBSD 
>
> >If (and that's and awfully big "if" just now!) I were to try to market
> >some commercial software that just so happened to work best with DB 2.x
> 
> DB 1.X has bugs that can kill things like Sendmail.

Hmm... and what about the slightly older sendmail still in NetBSD?

>   I believe Sun has
> already received a variant license for DB2 for use with their shipped
> Sendmail.

they are not listed on the WWW pages as a Sleepycat customer using DB,
though Sendmail, Kerberos and Perl are (Kerberos via MIT)....  Of course
that doesn't mean much....

> I do not know if any money was involved.

me neither, but I don't think that's necessarily relevant to this
discussion....

> This all assumes that your product ships with a compiler, the user wishes
> to place the computer on an internet network, you have a transport tool
> that can get through any firewalls without user intervention, etc., etc.
> The alternative is tech-support hell.

Of course....

> Personally, I'm not interested in "sneaking through some loophole" to not
> pay Keith if his desire is to be payed for his work.  Considering the fact
> that he payed several contractors to deliver portions of DB2, I think he
> certainly has the right to recoup his costs and benefit from his work.

I fully agree.  I'm really more interested in these kinds of copyright
licenses in general, not necessarily the DB copyright license
specifically, though it provides a good example, and indeed I think
integration the most recent version of DB would be beneficial to NetBSD.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098      VE3TCP      <gwoods@acm.org>      <robohack!woods>
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