[Python-Dev] argparse.py is licensed under the Apache License

Amaury Forgeot d'Arc amauryfa at gmail.com
Wed Mar 24 09:42:52 CET 2010


Hello,

I noticed that the newly added argparse module has an unusual
licence header, included below. This is the only file in the Python tree
that contains an explicit reference to the Apache License,
and this leads me to some questions:

- Is the Apache license compatible with the Python license?
Will this cause problem for some organizations that redistribute Python,
possibly with proprietary software? Are there additional constraints?

- Does this addition require a paragraph in the python documentation?
http://docs.python.org/license.html#licenses-and-acknowledgements-for-incorporated-software

- The Apache License states that::
    You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices stating
    that You changed the files
but r78749 already modified the file (to remove a py3k warning)
didn't we break the License?

- Did the contributor sign a Contributor agreement? In this case,
shouldn't the code be marked as "Licensed to PSF under a Contributor Agreement",
as mentioned in the contribution form?
http://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form
And then, could this Apache License be removed?


The first lines of Lib/argparse.py are:
# Copyright 2006-2009 Steven J. Bethard <steven.bethard at gmail.com>.
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not
# use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy
# of the License at
#
#     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
# WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
# License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
# under the License.

--
Amaury Forgeot d'Arc


More information about the Python-Dev mailing list