Lies, lies, lies II

[matthew_heusser at mcgraw-hill.com]

Warning:  Open-Source Religious Argument.

Doing a bit more research, postGreSQL does have a license
agreement that is not too terribly restrictive, and it was started
by the university of California.   Here's what the readme says about
porting:

 >1.4) What non-unix ports are available?
 >
 >      Client
 >
 >  It is possible to compile the libpq C library, psql, and other
 >  interfaces and binaries to run on MS Windows platforms. In this case,
 >  the client is running on MS Windows, and communicates via TCP/IP to a
 >  server running on one of our supported Unix platforms. A file
 >  win31.mak is included in the distribution for making a Win32 libpq
 >  library and psql. PostgreSQL also communicates with ODBC clients.
 >
 >       Server
 >
 >  The database server can run on Windows NT and Win2k using Cygwin, the
 >  Cygnus Unix/NT porting library. See pgsql/doc/FAQ_MSWIN in the
 >  distribution or the MS Windows FAQ on our web site. We have no plan to
 >  do a native port to any Microsoft platform.

  When companies start saying things like "well, it might be possible,
but we designed it for UNIX ..." I get worried.  Oh, and Cygwin is produced
under the GNU licensing model.  If we could make it work, we'd have to call
in the lawyers, and then ... we probably couldn't make it work.

  Can anyone think of a "open source" software company that has generated
real profits using the shrink-wrap model? (Offhand?)

Matt H.