Record what the ClickBench licence actually forbids (#421) - #457
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Record what the ClickBench licence actually forbids (#421)#457ChronicallyJD wants to merge 1 commit into
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…mpt#421) Owner determination, 2026-08-06, after reading CC BY-NC-SA: publishing our own test results is permitted. We measure to compare, not to sell. An earlier version of this commit removed the ClickBench numbers from docs/benchmarks.md on a reading that no numbers could be published. That reading was wrong and the removal is reverted. Nothing about those measurements was in doubt at any point; only what we were entitled to do with them. What the term forbids, now written down rather than left to inference: - selling copies of the material, or of a remix of it - placing it on a site monetised by ads where revenue is the primary goal - using it in promotional materials, corporate brochures or paid advertisements - charging a fee to access, download or view a derivative work built on it The third is the one worth guarding, because it is the one a well-meaning reader walks into. A benchmark table in documentation exists so a user can decide whether this engine suits their workload. The same table in a sales deck is the prohibited use, and having produced the numbers ourselves does not change that, because the definition they were produced with is the licensed material. So the caution sits beside the table in docs/benchmarks.md, where someone about to lift it will see it, and the full list sits in PROVENANCE.md beside the determination and its reasoning. No legal opinion was sought, and it is recorded so it can be revisited rather than re-derived.
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) CJD is right, and the criticism lands on something I had already flagged and then did anyway. Earlier today I noted that the NonCommercial term restricts use "primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage" rather than products as such, and that a project developed by a business is the gray part. Then I wrote the provenance record resting on exactly the footing I had warned against: "pgColumnar is an open-source project rather than a commercial product." That is a stronger claim than the owner made and a riskier one. It also omitted the four specific prohibitions, and the third is the one a well-meaning reader walks into: a benchmark table in documentation is fine, the same table in a sales deck is the prohibited use, and having produced the numbers ourselves does not change that because the definition they came from is the licensed material. A record that says "acceptable use" without saying which uses is the half that gets quoted. #457 records the determination with the owner's own reasoning and the full list, and puts the caution beside the numbers where someone about to lift them will see it. Both PRs touched this paragraph; this one drops it so #457 lands clean. The runner change in this PR is unaffected and was approved as merge-ready. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01E9W9N2tvsvK7hndJgTmqJf
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Owner determination, 2026-08-06, after reading CC BY-NC-SA: publishing our own test results is
permitted. We measure to compare, not to sell.
I had this wrong and this PR now says the opposite of what it opened with
The first version removed the load-and-size table and the per-query speedup ratios from
docs/benchmarks.md, on the reading that no ClickBench-derived numbers could be published. Thatreading was wrong. The removal is reverted and
docs/benchmarks.mdis byte-identical tomainapart from one added caution.Nothing about those measurements was ever in doubt. Only what we were entitled to do with them.
What the term actually forbids
Now written down rather than left to inference:
The third is the one worth guarding, because it is the one a well-meaning reader walks into. A
benchmark table in documentation exists so a user can decide whether this engine suits their
workload, and so we can see our own regressions. The same table in a sales deck, a conference
booth panel or a paid campaign is the prohibited use — and having produced the numbers ourselves
does not change that, because the benchmark definition they were produced with is the licensed
material.
Where each piece lives
docs/benchmarks.mdgains a short caution beside the numbers, where someone about to liftthem will actually see it. Everything else in that file is unchanged.
PROVENANCE.mdcarries the full list, the determination, and its reasoning. No legalopinion was sought, and it is recorded so it can be revisited rather than re-derived.
It also records the run-time fetch decision from the same day, which #453 implements.
On #453
Its
PROVENANCE.mdparagraph reached the opposite conclusion on this question before the ownerhad made one, and I held it for that reason. The owner has now ruled, and the substance of that
paragraph is closer to right than my first attempt was — but it was still recording a
determination that had not been taken. Both of us should let that file follow the owner rather
than lead them.