[Python-Dev] Licensing // PSF // Motion of non-confidence

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Tue, 6 Jul 2010 07:05:58 +1000
Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> As Brett noted, yes, the LICENSE file is complicated, but most people
> don't bother reading it themselves - they ask what FSF and OSI think
> of it, and get the answers "BSD style" and "GPL compatible" and are
> happy with that.

Which is the very wrong thing to do, though. License text should be
understandable by non-lawyer people; IIUC OpenBSD has a very sane
policy in this respect.

> The corporate history is such that the PSF probably
> doesn't have the legal rights to simplify it

Yes, that's probably the real problem and why it's not of much use to
argue about it. You have to trust the PSF (and/or python-dev), because
the license text may not be able to change very soon (if any day at
all).

Regards

Antoine.