[throwthere]

Álvaro Hernández here apparently runs a PostgreSQL consulting firm [1] and controls "Fundación PostgreSQL." Would Fundación PostgreSQL have the power to grant exclusive use of the trademark to the consulting firm?

[1] https://ongres.com/about-us/#team

[clra]

Just to play devil's advocate — OOC, what do you think the end game for Álvaro would be under this scenario?

Under the most cynical interpretation, I guess he'd convert Ongres from a Postgres consultancy to a trademark troll and sue other companies who try to use "Postgres"? Maybe, but that's a pretty serious professional change, and seems a little unlikely, especially given that's a considerable chance that he loses the trademark again if it does end up in court.

For my money, the most likely explanation is that it was a land grab move for prestige purposes that went too far. (And one which may backfire as Google ties this press release to his name.)

[shkkmo]

I get the impression that Álvaro has issues with the governance of the core team and PGCAC and thus wanted trademarks to protect his consultancy that were under the control of his non-profit which he believes has stricter governance. He also seems to be interested in leveraging the trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and PGCAC.

[clra]

Yeah. My comments are from before Alvaro started commenting in this thread, and I've since changed my position based on reading his responses.

> He also seems to be interested in leveraging the trademarks to force governance changes on the core team and PGCAC.

This is it. The strategy was to acquire the trademarks and then use them as leverage to force the dissolution of Postgres Core and its associated organizations, to be replaced with a new power structure which includes him as a key member.

The very last part is me editorializing somewhat (although it's not very much of a stretch), but he's been quite explicit about the rest of it.

[BizarroLand]

Trademark trolling is specifically the use case for this. Sue every sub $300k/yr company than mentions that they use PostgreSQL in their stack. They won't have the funds to defend themselves, he makes off with $10k-$30k in settlements and goes on to the next one until a court stops him.

[ahachete]

Fundación PostgreSQL is a 100% independent non-profit organization not tied to any company or any other institution. Its governing board cannot have more than 40% members of the same company. Please go to https://postgresql.fund/ and read the Statutes.

Actually, a "Fundación" in Spain is an entity specially scrutinized by the Ministry of Justice, and could never to anything like this. It is meant to be for the public good.

Besides, this very same question could have been applied to the Core Team members that are employees of EDB and/or Crunchy, two entities that control the majority of Core. And Core is not even a non-profit, it's nothing (there's no legal entity behind). Or the PostgreSQL Association of Canada, which is an association which could definitely grant exclusive trademark use to a given entity, as it is not scrutinized by a country's Ministry, as a Fundación in Spain is.

[petergeoghegan]

> Fundación PostgreSQL is a 100% independent non-profit organization not tied to any company or any other institution.

What about private individuals? Specifically, you?

Quoting the charter here: https://postgresql.fund/documents/Fundacion_PostgreSQL-Statu...:

""" Article 13. Honorary Members. ... 2. The Founder, Mr. Alvaro Carlos Hernandez Tortosa, is Honorary Life Member as the Honorary President of the Foundation, appointment that is not incompatible with any other post at the Foundation or the Patronage. He can assist the Patronage acts with voice. He doesn’t have the right to vote, unless his status of elected or founding Member of the Patronage applies. """

It goes on to say:

""" Article 15. Duties of the Patronage. During its performance, the Patronage must comply with the required under current legislation and the willingness of the Founder expressed in this Statutes. """

I have to admit that this document is above my reading comprehension level. What does this actually mean?

[ahachete]

In Spain, a Foundation is a very strong legal entity scrutinized by the Ministry of Justice. This means, among other things, that:

* Every action of its board is supervised by the Ministry of Justice. * No action or change to the status can go against the initial will (which is part of the Estatutes, in particular Articles 3 and 4). Even if anyone would try to change them, they could only be done in a way that respects them. This is what is called "the founder's will".

So it's a very protective non-profit, which always needs to serve the public good and the founder's wills, which are Articles 3 and 4. And there's even public supervision for this.

We believed this form of a non-profit is much stronger and better to protect a Community like Postgres from potential rogue actors.

As an aside, we contemplate honorary (non-voting) members. We believe is a good thing. I'd also propose the same for Core --I believe at least Bruce Momjian should be named as such.

[jarcane]

> In Spain, a Foundation is a very strong legal entity scrutinized by the Ministry of Justice.

And US corporations are also "legal entities scrutinized by" the DOJ and the SEC.

Look how well that works. The fact that people can sue you if they have enough money does not really make this any more trustworthy than anything else.

It feels an awful lot like you are throwing around terms like a smokescreen and hoping people don't understand Spanish law well enough to confront you about it.

[petergeoghegan]

> No, the Founder's are the Founding members (5).

The document says:

"The Founder [singular], Mr. Alvaro Carlos Hernandez Tortosa, is Honorary Life Member..."

It goes on to say:

"...the willingness of the Founder [singular] expressed in this Statutes"

See why I'm connecting the two sentences?

Don't you think that this choice of words is, at the very least, confusing? Maybe you should issue a clarification on your blog. Perhaps it's all just a misunderstanding.

[petergeoghegan]

> This is what is called "the founder's will".

Just to be clear: you're saying that "the founder's will" should not be interpreted as meaning "what Alvaro Carlos Hernandez Tortosa [the founder for life] decides"?

[ahachete]

No, the Founder's are the Founding members (5).

In any case, read the will: Article's 3 and 4. Do you disagree with them? Do you think they are bad for Postgres, or good?

Do you support that will?

Because if so, this will is a powerful asset of this NPO, as it cannot be (significantly) changed. However, Core's will, as well as PEU and PAC's will, could be changed in a way that would go against Postgres.

[geofft]

In your longer response https://postgresql.fund/blog/postgres-core-team-attacks-post... you say that the advantage of the Fundación over the core team is that it is protects against PostgreSQL being acquired:

> In other words: a PostgreSQL association may be turned into a cooking, or into an Oracle association; whereas Fundación PostgreSQL will always remain a PostgreSQL nonprofit, for the sole benefit of the PostgreSQL Community.

and

> If one of the main resilience strategies of the PostgreSQL Community is to have a distributed IP strategy, which protects it from being bought, why is one part of the Community legally threatening another part?

But I do not see anything in Articles 3 and 4 that addresses this. Suppose a majority of PostgreSQL developers were to accept job offers from Oracle and the Core Team decided to rebrand it as "Oracle PostgreSQL". I don't see anything in Articles 3 and 4 that would prevent the Fundación from recognizing Oracle PostgreSQL as the legitimate / real PostgreSQL. It simply talks about "the Open Source software known as PostgreSQL (www.postgresql.org)", and as you know, Oracle's MySQL is still known as "MySQL" and still is at www.mysql.org.

In fact, Articles 3 and 4 would obligate the Fundación to support Oracle, to contribute to Oracle, to assign copyright to Oracle if they added that requirement (the Fundación is required to contribute to PostgreSQL, and there is no clause saying "unless it requires assigning copyright"), to promote Oracle PostgreSQL, and so forth. Right?

That is to say, it seems to me that it is an advantage that PEU and PAC do not have any such commitment to stick with whoever happens to call themselves "PostgreSQL" today, and a disadvantage that the Fundación must convince the Ministry of Justice that Oracle's leadership of MySQL (which has been fine, not great but certainly MySQL is a usable product) has actually been so bad that the founding documents need to be changed.

(I am not much of a Postgres user, and I know basically nothing of how it runs, and I also know nothing of Spanish law, so I'm definitely not trying to say that you're wrong and they're right. I'm just trying to understand what your claim is and how it works.)

[rhaas]

The only name I can find on the "Fundación PostgreSQL" web site is yours. The PostgreSQL core team membership is listed on postgresql.org and includes 7 members from 4 different companies. I agree that perhaps the PostgreSQL core team could and should have more diversity than it does, and not just in terms of who employs them ... but an organization with only one publicly-disclosed member is not somehow better.

[ahachete]

I agree that we need to enhance the website and give more visibility to the people behind the foundation. We will do so shortly.

Yet this is public (as in the public registries).

Please contact us if you want further information.

[Jare]

Just post the list here to get the ball rolling?

[ahachete]

Rubén J. Bravo, Manuel Argiz, César Calvo Pinilla, Alberto Picón and myself.

[rhaas]

I have been a PostgreSQL hacker since 2008 and a PostgreSQL user for many years before that. The first mention of my name in the PostgreSQL commit log is in 2003, and the first version of PostgreSQL that I used was 7.something; it couldn't drop columns yet.

Now that doesn't mean that I know every person who does good work on behalf of PostgreSQL, but it does mean that I expect to recognize the names of most people who have been involved in the project to a significant degree. And the only one of those names I recognize is yours.

I tried a quick Google search of each name with "site:postgresql.org" and the only one of those names that gets any hits is, again, yours. That means that, as far as Google knows, not a single one of those people has posted even a single message to any PostgreSQL mailing list ever. Needless to say, that's not close to true for any current member of the PostgreSQL core team, or a vast number of people who are not on the core team but who are involved in the project to greater or lesser extents.

It is true that the PostgreSQL community is distributed, and not everything happens or is required to happen on postgresql.org. But I think it is nevertheless extremely difficult to argue that a group of people who have never posted there even once are a more legitimate group to be in charge of PostgreSQL's trademarks than the PostgreSQL core team.

[cpettus]

> Rubén J. Bravo, Manuel Argiz, César Calvo Pinilla, Alberto Picón

What companies do they work for?

[mattashii]

> Fundación PostgreSQL is a 100% independent non-profit organization not tied to any company or any other institution.

I think that it is highly dubious that a foundation that claims to be independent (from the PostgreSQL project, I suppose), with no ties to any other PostgreSQL community foundations and/or associations ("company or institution"), claims "PostgreSQL" or derivatives of the brand as its trademark.

I could not find any reason to believe that the organization behind postgresql.fund is in any way affiliated with the PostgreSQL project, as I could not find it mentioned on any of the official affiliations pages (has no mailing list, events, IRC, LUG mention, nor a link in the international sites section). I repeat, I believe that postgresql.fund claiming ownership of the PostgreSQL brand (or basic derivatives thereof) in any category is highly dubious.

[lol768]

Can you please make your affiliation with Fundación PostgreSQL clear in both your bio and a disclaimer in the comments you write here? Thanks.

[ahachete]

Sure. Fundación PostgreSQL co-founder and current President.

[lsaferite]

Don't forget 'Founder for Life'

[CRConrad]

Once you've founded something you can't un-found it, so aren't all founders founders for life?