Re-using copyrighted code

[Mark Janssen]

I can't tell you as a lawyer, but I can tell you that regarding code
for non-commercial use, the only supportable case is requiring
fair-credit assignment.  If reading the original license (which you
are obligated to do if you re-use and re-distribute the code), it
stipulates that you must re-share accordingly, then you should,
otherwise there's very little case that could be brought about if the
code was put into a published, "open-source" project, whatever the
license.

mark

On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Malte Forkel <malte.forkel at berlin.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have written a small utility to locate errors in regular expressions
> that I want to upload to PyPI.  Before I do that, I would like to learn
> a litte more about the legal aspects of open-source software. What would
> be a good introductory reading?
>
> Plus, I have one very specific question: In my package, I use modified
> code from sre_parse.py, which is part of the Python release. That file
> has the following header:
>
> #
> # Secret Labs' Regular Expression Engine
> #
> # convert re-style regular expression to sre pattern
> #
> # Copyright (c) 1998-2001 by Secret Labs AB.  All rights reserved.
> #
> # See the sre.py file for information on usage and redistribution.
> #
>
> The referenced information is missing in the version of sre.py that
> comes with current versions of Python, but I found it in the archive
> http://effbot.org/media/downloads/sre-2.2.1.zip. It reads:
>
> #
> # Secret Labs' Regular Expression Engine
> #
> # re-compatible interface for the sre matching engine
> #
> # Copyright (c) 1998-2001 by Secret Labs AB.  All rights reserved.
> #
> # This version of the SRE library can be redistributed under CNRI's
> # Python 1.6 license.  For any other use, please contact Secret Labs
> # AB (info at pythonware.com).
> #
> # Portions of this engine have been developed in cooperation with
> # CNRI.  Hewlett-Packard provided funding for 1.6 integration and
> # other compatibility work.
> #
>
> Now, how am I supposed to deal with that? Ask Secret Labs for some kind
> of permission? Leave it as it is and add my own copyright line?
>
> Malte
>
> --
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list



-- 
MarkJ
Tacoma, Washington