Still no new license -- but draft text available

[John W. Stevens]

Martijn Faassen wrote:
> 
> John W. Stevens <jstevens at basho.fc.hp.com> wrote:
> > Grant Griffin wrote:
> >>
> >> Piet van Oostrum wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Many people do m\not like GPL but if python had originally been released
> >> > under GPL, CNRI wouldn't have been able to change that, and all this fuss
> >> > wouldn't have been necessary.
> >>
> >> But without its generous CWI license, many of the commercial uses of
> >> Python (which have undoubtedly contributed to its success) would not
> >> have been possible.
> 
> > Really?  You are saying that there are a lot of companies that have
> > taken the Python source code, modified it, and are making money off of
> > it, and that they couldn't have done this under the L\GPL?
> 
> > Who?  And why?
> 
> Let's take Digital Creators, who made Zope. Right now Zope is
> open source under a liberal license, but Zope used to be Principia,
> which was sold. Digital Creations would likely not have produced
> Principia with Python if Python had a more restrictive license
> such as the GPL (LGPL might've been okay, though I'm not sure how
> it fits an interpreter) if this had required them to release their own
> Principia source code as well.

The five Python modules I've created and released have all been
LGPL'ed.  Use of these modules in a commercial environment is perfectly
fine, with the one caveat that changes TO THE MODULES must be released
back to the community.

If Zope could not, under any circumstances, figure out how to do what
they wanted without being forced to release their core code to the
community, then I would really, really like to take a look at their
designs.

> So in a way one can see this as a kind of a spin-off of the very
> liberal nature of the Python license. Of course one can't say for
> sure that the GPL would've thrown a spanner in the wheels, I do think
> a good case could be made.

And an equally good case could be made the other way, but as you point
out, it is difficult to judge without more control over the variables.

> Anyway, of course there are pros and cons to licenses, which is why
> we have different ones.

This is as it should be.  I really only responded to this thread in
order to counter the FUD, misrepresentations and out right lies being
promulgated re: the GPL.

The GPL is not as some have painted it to be.

-- 

If I spoke for HP --- there probably wouldn't BE an HP!

John Stevens
jstevens at basho.fc.hp.com