Fedora Looking To Transition The RPM Database From Berkeley DB To SQLite

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Fedora Looking To Transition The RPM Database From Berkeley DB To SQLite

As a move ultimately for Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well, Red Hat developers working on Fedora are planning to transition the RPM database (RPMDB) away from the long-standing Berkeley DB to using SQLite...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-RPMDB-To-SQLite

[wizard69]

Cool! Hopefully DB can be done away with completely the n Fedora.

[bug77]

I wonder what was RedHat's beef with AGPL.

[NotMine999]

At least Red Hat did not go "full IBM" on us and implement something like IBM DB2 or IBM Informix.

[Michael_S]

I wonder what was RedHat's beef with AGPL.

The existing RPM code is under GPLv2, so I think they would need agreement from every prior contributor in the history of RPM to re-license it under AGPL - or anything else.

SQLite is public domain, so you can stick it into a GPLv2 project.

[Mario Junior]

I wonder what was RedHat's beef with AGPL.

Or WTFPL.

[CommunityMember]

I wonder what was RedHat's beef with AGPL.

The general beef with AGPLv3 for something like BDB is the claim that it discriminates against a category of user (those that want to use the software/library in their non-open solution), as the linking exception does not apply (in simple terms, you can't link to (later versions of) BDB without open sourcing everything). AGPLv3 is typically used to ensure that only the developer themselves can decide how to monetize any use of their work (typically by providing a dual-use license for those that do not want to open source all their software), although even AGPLv3 has a cloud service loophole which the SSPL was intended to address (to ensure, again, that the developer could determine monetization). Whether every piece of software *should* be open source is an interesting discussion, but *requiring* all software to be open source is considered a step too far by many (at least Debian and RedHat) as it eliminates freedoms.

[Anvil]

I wonder what was RedHat's beef with AGPL.

Berkley is somewhat Dead anyway, its license is AGPLv3+ there are APPS like APT an others that cannot use DB6.2 + , im sure Redhat lists those apps somewhere that cannot use the new BerkleyDB

[bug77]

The general beef with AGPLv3 for something like BDB is the claim that it discriminates against a category of user (those that want to use the software/library in their non-open solution), as the linking exception does not apply (in simple terms, you can't link to (later versions of) BDB without open sourcing everything). AGPLv3 is typically used to ensure that only the developer themselves can decide how to monetize any use of their work (typically by providing a dual-use license for those that do not want to open source all their software), although even AGPLv3 has a cloud service loophole which the SSPL was intended to address (to ensure, again, that the developer could determine monetization). Whether every piece of software *should* be open source is an interesting discussion, but *requiring* all software to be open source is considered a step too far by many (at least Debian and RedHat) as it eliminates freedoms.

I'm pretty sure you can't use GPLv2 code in closed solutions either, so that can't be it. (The Linux kernel is GPLv2, Nvidia isn't allowed to use some public symbols/constants in their driver.)

[CommunityMember]

I'm pretty sure you can't use GPLv2 code in closed solutions either

You can link to LGPL code (glibc, etc.) from closed solutions.

The other problem is that if Debian/RedHat upgraded the library from v5 to v6 with the AGPLv3 license, suddenly software that happened to link to BDB would have an obligation they never had before to publish all their source code (compelled speech, and perhaps the equivalent of a submarine patent, are things most people agree are bad things). One is free to conjecture why Oracle (the current owner of BDB) chose AGPLv3 for BDB.