[Fsfe-france] Re: pgAdmin is proprietary software

[Jean-Michel POURE]

Le Dimanche 18 Mai 2003 18:52, Loic Dachary a écrit :
> Note that I'm just saying : "read the license, you'll be
> surprised". And they draw their own conclusions. They specially like
> the "The pgAdmin Development Team may end the licence agreement for
> any reason, without notice and without prejudice" part.

Dear Loic,

1) Please consider that hackers have different goals in life : some want to 
change the world, some are looking for thrilling technical things and others 
just want to have fun or even run a company. Also friendship is important. 
There are so many combined motivations to write free software, whatever the 
definition.

-> Personally, I am not an activist, just a believer in Democracy. pgAdmin is 
a nice experience, but you can also have a look at PhpPgAdmin which is GNU.

2) Don't you remember I told you Saturday that we created "pgAdmin foundation 
for historical reasons". The day we started pgAdmin2, RedHat forked 
PostgreSQL to release RedHat database, a very expensive product with no real 
difference compared to PostgreSQL. We got very annoyed... This is why we 
created the pgAdmin foundation.

Relying on a foundation gives us more freedom. But, as a small foundation, we 
did not spend more than 1 day on the definition of the license. With time, 
pgAdmin license seemed a very suitable approach, because we did not have to 
rely on anyone else's license.

-> We are mostly lasy persons... therefore we got organized creating a 
foundation. But, inside the foundation, we believe in Free Software, so you 
can trust us.

3) I told you I would get in contact with Dave and discuss with him. pgAdmin 
Team is organized a way every hacker has a vote. In other words, we are a 
democracy.

Usually, we ask questions and then discuss on the list. Why didn't you let us 
discuss? Why don't you register on our list? No hurry man, Dave has three 
kids, You and I have one.Should we hang constantly on the net?

-> Believing in Free Software also means accepting democracy in a group. There 
cannot be democracy without Free Software and the converse is true.

4) We spoke on the phone during 3 hours on Friday. I listened to your very 
interesting conference on Saturday. Then, we went to a bar to have a drink. I 
told you I was convinced that the GNU would be a suitable solution.

-> Do you really believe we are "the evil" and you are "the good". Why can't 
you wait a few days, man? Now, it will be more difficult to convince Dave and 
other hackers.

By the way I forgot to pay the beer and the coffee at the bar. I own you a 
beer or will send you the money by post. All this is too silly. We are not at 
war, we are supposed to be friends.

Cheers,
Jean-Michel