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I created an application for the company where I am doing my internship with Visual studio 2015, it should be connected to a Postgres server my questions are:

  • Can the company use the Postgresql 9.4 and my application wihout any legal risk?

I already read the license and it says that it's for a commercial use too. Is this correct?

Zizouz212
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xAminex
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  • Is "LGP" in the title a typo of "GPL" or a typo of "LGPL"? You tagged your question as both, so you could mean either. Please clarify. In either case, you will also have to clarify what kind of "use" you are talking about (just internal use or selling it, and when selling under what license conditions). – Philipp Sep 16 '15 at 13:14
  • Also, when you "want to be sure", you should ask the legal department of your company. We are open source enthusiasts like you, not qualified copyright lawyers. – Philipp Sep 16 '15 at 13:17
  • Hi philipp this I read the license ( it says that we can use the both for a commercial use ), but I'm not a professional Programmer I was hopping to find an expert here who was already confronted with the same situation – xAminex Sep 16 '15 at 13:28
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    What does your question have to do with LGPL? PostgreSQL is not licensed under LGPL. – Brandin Sep 16 '15 at 14:42

2 Answers2

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Yes, you can safely use Postgresql without any legal risk because it is Free Software. Freedom 0 is the freedom to use to program for any purpose.

This is also made explicit in the license:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose, without fee, and without a written agreement is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph and the following two paragraphs appear in all copies.

Soong
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Yes, you can.

The LGPL allows you to use a library (in this case the library which interfaces between your program and the PostgreSQL database server) as a dynamically linked library in any software for any purpose and distribute the program under any license, as long as you follow the attribution requirements explained in section 4 of the license text and don't change the library itself.

If you did make changes to the library (I hope you didn't, because this is something a programmer should generally avoid for various reasons), you need to release your changed library together with the application under the terms of the LGPL (which means with sourcecode).

But even these conditions only apply when the company you made the program for decides to sell or give away the program to third parties (or in the language of the GPL: "conveys" the program). As long as it is only used internally and never leaves the company, you can ignore pretty much all requirements of the LGPL.

Philipp
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