Python programs always open source?

[Ben Finney]

Chris Lambacher <chris at kateandchris.net> writes:

> On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 09:46:13PM +1000, Ben Finney wrote:
> > "Diez B. Roggisch" <deets at nospam.web.de> writes:
> > > Ben Finney schrieb:
> > > > My claim (and IANAL) is that it doesn't matter *what* license
> > > > Python is distributed under; unless you do something with Python
> > > > that is a right of the copyright holder, such as distributing part
> > > > or all of Python, the copyright license terms of Python have no
> > > > legal effect on what license you choose for your own work.
> > >
> > > Not true for the GPL. Part of python is the library, which you
> > > either use explicit (I can't imagine a program that doesn't, beyond
> > > print "hello world"), or implicit (sys and os are AFAIX used
> > > internally to bootstrap the interpreter)
> > 
> > And just about every program on a GNU/Linux system uses the libc
> > library, which is distributed under the GPL. That license *only*
> > affects works that are *derivative* of the libc library.
> Hmmm... The copyright file I have for GNU C Library looks to be LGPL:

True, that was a poorly chosen example.

There are many programs and libraries on a GNU/Linux system that are
licensed under the GPL. Programs that *derive from* them (by, for
instance, using their C header files as part of the program source)
must comply with the terms of the GPL. Programs that merely *use* that
functionality during execution are not affected by the GPL.

That latter case is the only one for most interpreted Python programs:
no part of the library is in the source code of the Python program, so
the license of that library doesn't affect the licensing of the
program.

Write your program in Python, and you can ignore the Python license
when you distribute your own work. We'd love to see you distribute it
under a free software license, but the license of Python has no legal
effect on your decision.

-- 
 \          "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."  -- |
  `\                                                      Groucho Marx |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney