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Ingres r3 released
Computer Associates has announced the availability of Ingres r3, available under the "CA Trusted Open Source License." Major new features include high-availability clustering, parallel query processing, Unicode support, and more.
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Ingres r3 released - License OSI compliant ? Posted Nov 1, 2004 15:55 UTC (Mon) by adulau (guest, #1131) [Link] When reading the license, I was wondering if the license is really OSI compliant :
" 5.3 Each Recipient acknowledges that the Program is not intended for use in the operation of nuclear facilities, aircraft navigation, communication systems, or air traffic control machines in which case the failure of the Program could lead to death, personal injury, or severe physical or environmental damage."
Because of the "Open Source" definition :
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
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I can't find any information on the opensource.org website regarding the matter and CA seems to say that his license is OSI compliant.
Ingres r3 released - License OSI compliant ? Posted Nov 1, 2004 16:06 UTC (Mon) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] It doesn't say that you *can't* use it -- just that it's not intended for that. Which seems fair enough -- it's a warning, not a restriction.
critical apps Posted Nov 1, 2004 16:30 UTC (Mon) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link] no, for critical applications like these you need MS Access
critical apps Posted Nov 1, 2004 18:24 UTC (Mon) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link] ...sprayed water all over myself..... :)
I hope *no* MS-Windows products are being used in such situations.
This from a former, strong supporter of their products....
critical apps Posted Nov 4, 2004 11:06 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Do voting machines count?
Ingres r3 released - License OSI compliant ? Posted Nov 1, 2004 16:52 UTC (Mon) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link] It does seem to prohibit use in certain situations, but for liability reasons, not for ideological ones, which is what the OSI definition covers, IMHO. It does make sense to restrict the use of a program away from things it was not designed to handle, and which carry a lot of risk of physical harm if things fail accidentally. Perhaps one could modify the program to specifically handle this kind of thing and then ask for an exception on the license clause, if one wanted to certify (and be liable for) major catastrophes like this. Yikes! Not me. :-)
Where is the prohibition? Posted Nov 1, 2004 17:03 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] The language does not prohibit the use of the program in any application. It just appears to be a CYA in case someone does use the program in a safety-critical application and something goes wrong.
Ingres r3 released - License OSI compliant ? Posted Nov 1, 2004 22:21 UTC (Mon) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] My guess is, this is legalese for "we don't do hard realtime guarantees in this program". Since those are often necessary to be used in such environments, not having a deterministic upper bound to latency would be grounds for at least warning people. In other words, it's advising of a technical restriction, and trying to eliminate liability in such cases.
Ingres r3 released - License OSI compliant ? Posted Nov 2, 2004 8:57 UTC (Tue) by jmshh (guest, #8257) [Link] Not only hard realtime is a problem. There are situations where soft or no realtime at all are enough, but correctness is absolutely important. But usually these environments require lots of certificates, so even without the restriction a system like this won't be even considered.
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