Permission to Showcase the Python Program

[Terry Reedy]

On 6/9/2015 10:19 AM, Leslie Bush wrote:
> I’m having trouble reaching an actual human at your organization
 > as my emails get bounced back.

If you sent email to
psf at python.org <psf at python.org>
it should not have bounced, as according to
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-legal-sig
that is the 'legal email address'.

But I do not think it really matters for your purpose.

> My name is Leslie Bush and I am the Intellectual Property Coordinator
 > for The Great Courses. We produce non-credit, college-level educational
 > programs on DVD and electronic formats in a lecture series.
 > The lectures are recorded and then sold to the general public for-profit.
 > As a didactic tool for enhancing the programs, we include in the lectures
 > visual elements illustrating works of art, people, events, locations, 
etc....

I am a python core developer, a member of PSF, but otherwise have no 
official position.  As a parent, I am familiar with The Great Courses,
having used 2 for home schooling.  They were very helpful.

> We are currently producing a course with Dr. John Keyser, Professor of
 > Computer Science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 
entitled
 > “Computer Science for Everyone: Programming Concepts and Exercises”
 > The professor would like to use your Python program to showcase in 
the course.

Great.  Most of us would consider it silly for him not to.  Most of us 
would also urge that he use Python 3 rather than Python 2, if he is not 
already.

 > I am writing to see if we may have permission to do so. If permission
 > is granted, we will have a copy of our license agreement sent over to
 > your company’s authorizer for review and a signature.

I am not a lawyer, but am 99.990% (and I am not exaggerating) sure that 
the Python license already gives you the permission you need. Our 
documentation page is at
https://docs.python.org/3/
Clicking the History and License of Python link takes you to
https://docs.python.org/3/license.html
Skip to Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python
and read PSF LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 3.4.3.  It is about as liberal 
as can be.  It was written by the PSF lawyer and is intended to be a 
blanket grant of permissiond, so that the PSF will not need to employ an 
'authorizer' to review and sign permissions. This is standard for 
open-source software.

Companies routinely use Python and write their own public and 
proprietary code.  People write and sell books about Python or that 
reference Python.  Universities teach courses that include Python. 
People post videos about Python.  We WANT people to do all of these 
things.  They all do it without further agreements and signatures beyond 
what is openly published.

I suspect that some companies paranoid about the possibility of lawsuit 
may have their own lawyer review the license agreement to make sure it 
means what it seems to say and that their use falls within the license. 
  You are free to do the same if worried.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy