PostgreSQL and patents
Patents and open-source projects are always a messy combination it seems. A recent discussion on the pgsql-hackers mailing list highlights some of the problems that can result even when a patent holder wants to make their patents available to a project like PostgreSQL. Software patents are a minefield in many ways—often projects want to just avoid the problems entirely by staying completely away from code known to be covered by patents.
It started with a post from Takayuki Tsunakawa, who wondered how his employer, Fujitsu, could submit patches to PostgreSQL that implement various patented (and patent applied-for) techniques: "we'd like to offer our company's patents and patent applications license to the PostgreSQL community free of charge". He suggested three possibilities for how that might be accomplished: by way of a patent pool such as the one run by the Open Invention Network, doing an explicit patent grant (such as that in section 3 in the Apache v2 license), or by a patent promise like Red Hat's, but only for PostgreSQL.
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