WxPython versus Tkinter.

[Robert Kern]

On 1/26/11 11:46 AM, Octavian Rasnita wrote:
> From: "Robert Kern"<robert.kern at gmail.com>
>> That's not Terry's point. The reasons he's referring to (and stated previously)
>> are as follows:
>>
>> 1. The license of wxWidgets and wxPython is not as permissive as Python's. The
>> Python developers, as a matter of policy, do not want to include code into the
>> standard library that is less permissive than the current license.
>
> This is the worst and... sorry for the word, but real stupid thing.
> I mean, I don't consider a correct thinking to care more about the permissiveness of a licence which is anyway open source, more than about the accessibility.

Being able to say that all of a project is available under the substantively the 
same license is really important. It's very hard to get people to use your 
software if some parts are under one license and other parts are under a 
substantively different one. You are free to decide what licenses you want to 
distribute software under; the PSF has that freedom as well.

> Try to think that for some people Tkinter displays just a black filled rectangle. In that case would you still think that it is "correct" to keep that kind of GUI because of some differences between open source licences?

This is a reason for application developers to use wxPython, not for the Python 
developers to include wxPython in the standard library. The standard library 
neither claims nor aims to do everything. There are many things that Tkinter 
cannot do that wxPython can. None of those things are reasons to replace Tkinter 
with wxPython in the standard library. Not everything useful has to be in the 
standard library. Python has a vibrant ecosystem of third party packages.

wxPython is probably the most widely used GUI toolkit in Python. It has not been 
harmed (and I would argue that it has been very much helped) by not being in the 
standard library. Nor has it been harmed by the presence of Tkinter in the 
standard library. If wxPython had been included in the Python standard library, 
it would not have been able to easily follow the advancements of the underlying 
wxWidgets toolkit, and it would be a much less strong GUI toolkit.

>> 2. The Python developers require someone to commit to maintaining contributed
>> code for a number of years. No one has done so. See reason #3.
>
> In that case I understand that there are enough WxPython developers, well funded, but there is no commitment from them.

Correct, they have not committed to maintaining wxPython as part of the standard 
library (although they are committed to maintaining wxPython outside of it). 
They have not even suggested that wxPython should be part of the standard library.

>> From Python's perspective, there are not enough maintainers that can offer that commitment and yes, this is a real reason why the core Python developers can't include WxPython.
>
>> 3. The wxPython developers do not want wxPython in the standard library, not
>> least because they want to develop and release wxPython at a different pace and
>> release cycle than the standard library.
>
>
>> From the message of a list member which (but maybe I am wrong) appear to be a WxPython developer, I suspected that the WxPython developers might not want their work to be included in the Python distribution.
> I am not really sure about this because I haven't seen any message from a WxPython developer telling that yes, I am a WxPython developer and we don't want to allow including WxPython in the Python distro, and I almost don't believe that, but if it is true, I don't know why they didn't said that, because WxPython is their work and of course that if they don't accept to maintain a WxPython as apart of Python distribution, then this discussion doesn't have any meaning.

Robin, if you're still paying attention to this thread, would you mind chiming 
in? Robin Dunn is the wxPython project lead.

> I have only heard that WxPython will never be included, but without beeing more clear.
> Who knows, maybe some of those who said that are WxPython developers but for me they are just some names because I don't know them...
>
> The next (or previous) points are not important anymore if the WxPython developers don't want their work to be included in the Python distribution.
>
> So, is it true? That was the cause for which WxPython can't be promoted by Python?

There is a large difference between the being "promoted by Python" and being 
"included in Python's standard library. The latter is the issue at hand, not the 
former. wxPython is already "promoted" by Python's documentation:

   http://docs.python.org/library/othergui.html

-- 
Robert Kern

"I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma
  that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had
  an underlying truth."
   -- Umberto Eco