[Python-Dev] Python Consortium Meeting News

M.-A. Lemburg mal@lemburg.com
Sun, 23 Jul 2000 14:34:41 +0200


Tim Peters wrote:
> 
> [Neil Hodgson]
> >     I don't like this new license as it is much more complex than
> > the old license.
> 
> Then I'd say you're normal!  The principals on "our side" of the negotiation
> view this license as something of a triumph, simply because it's so much
> less obnoxious than the proposals that preceded it.  Not speaking for my
> employer, I think we lost.  OTOH, python.org will no longer be held hostage.
> 
> > Its about 4 times longer and appears to me to attempt to claim a
> > licensing relationship with third parties who use software written in
> > Python.
> >
> > Is Python going to use this license forever, or is it just for 1.6?
> 
> Who knows?  It's all hifalutin legalese.  Note that the text Guido sent out
> is not the same as the text it references at
> http://hdl.handle.net/1895.22/1011 either.  I believe it's the latter that's
> out of date, and the text Guido sent is friendlier to users.  Still, one way
> to read the Guido version is that 2.0 and everything after is a "derivative
> work", so must (paragraph 2) include the 1.6 CNRI license, and (paragraph 3)
> "indicate in any such work the nature of the modifications made to CNRI?s
> Software".  OTOH, I can see at least two other ways to read it!  Perhaps a
> consortium member who already paid a lawyer would care to  pass on their
> confusion <wink>.

Looks like we're going to have a license bloat here ;-)

BTW, what happened to the CWI copyright ? It seems to be missing
completely from the CNRI text... could be that we'll have
to fight with three different license texts which all apply
to 2.0 in the future.

Why not simply make Python public-domain instead ?

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
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