On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 06:52:16PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote: > We can't do much, actually. The trademark thing can be secured, but > other than that, I see no other defenses we could use. We can't prevent > people from being hired, and we can't guard against patent attacks. Actually, I think there's things that can be done in both cases. For patents, we need to ensure that we're not using technology that's covered by patents. But even so, this is really more of an issue for commercial entities using PostgreSQL. There's not very much Oracle could go after in the community. As for developers, the way that can be defended against is by keeping the developers in demand at companies that are commercializing PostgreSQL. The way that's done is by supporting those companies so that they're PostgreSQL operations are profitable and they have the desire to keep their talent around. Granted, Oracle has more money laying around than probably all current commercial ventures combined, but I would venture to guess that most people in the community would be very hesitant to even consider a job at Oracle. As an ironic aside, I actually turned down a job at Oracle about 18 months ago. Before anyone worries though, it was offered by a friend and PostgreSQL wasn't an issue at all. -- Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
