Python 2.4 killing commercial Windows Python development ?

[Michael Kearns]

Thomas Heller wrote:

> For commercial development, it should not be a problem to buy a license
> for MSVC 7.1, which gives you the right to distribute msvcrt71.dll.
> 
> And maybe that's the reason that few people care about this issue?

Hi Thomas,

There are a few problems with this as I see it. In theory, the 'cost' of 
MSVC 7.1 shouldn't be a problem for a big organisation. However, I 
wouldn't expect to have to go and buy it purely because I'm developing 
(perhaps) a shareware application using python - this isn't my case, but 
I wasn't looking at it from just a big organisation perspective.

Also, I don't believe that just 'owning' MSVC 7.1 is enough. From 
cursory glances at the various redist files, I would also have to ship 
the EULA, and as an end-user (of python) I can't just redistribute the 
files - perhaps I could write a place holder application in  MSVC to 
suggest that I was no longer an end-user, but this seems ridiculous as a 
workaround.

There even seem to be 'exclude' clauses to redistribution concerning 
open-source material, but IANAL and ran from the various paragraphs.

I would like to think that python would encourage as many folk as 
possible to use the language wherever it fits best (and perhaps even 
beyond) and yet this is going in the opposite direction.

Would it be so difficult for a 'no legalese attached' version to be 
provided on windows, or at the very least, some kind of statement 
regarding what is and isn't allowed ? There seems nothing within the 
python distribution stating the redistribution rights of the dll 
(correct me if I'm wrong) which already seems contrary to the MS 
requirements.

As much as I'd like to continue using it, because of the vague legal 
situation, I can't, and that's unfortunate.

Michael.