Questions for Guido van Rossum (Was: ...Tim Peters)

[joneshenry at my-deja.com]

In article <LNBBLJKPBEHFEDALKOLCKELKGNAA.tim_one at email.msn.com>,
  "Tim Peters" <tim_one at email.msn.com> wrote:

Could you answer the following points raised in the article
quoted below?  In brief, has the copyright holder CNRI of
Python 1.5.2 and 1.6a2 actually agreed to the purported
license included with the code, and do they agree the license
is legally valid?  CNRI's agreement as the copyright holder
is the only thing that gives anyone else the right to
distribute, use, or modify the code.  If there is any doubt,
in my opinion, potential distributors of Python need to be
told so that they can make an informed decision on whether
to risk infringement.

Debian for example has made the decision that because
there might be a legal risk that the GPL is not
compatible with the QPL, they cannot distribute KDE
linked with Qt.  This is despite the extreme unlikelihood
of either Trolltech or the copyright holders of the KDE
code ever suing Debian for such distribution.  On the
other hand, Red Hat has made a different decision.

I would hope that the final agreement between CNRI and
BeOpen would include a clear indication one way or another
whether the purported license of Python 1.5.2 and 1.6a2
is valid in the eyes of CNRI.  After all, 1.6 is not
released yet, so many distributors will be including
1.5.2 for some time.

Thanks to Tim Peters for his honest, informative, and
thoughtful answers to these troubling questions.

Henry Jones

> [joneshenry at my-deja.com]
> > Could you clarify the following statements you made?
>
> Frankly, I doubt it.
>
> >    "CNRI claims that the existing (CWI) Python license isn't
> >     a valid license, and while that claim makes little sense
> >     to me I'm not a lawyer."
> >
> > If CNRI the copyright holder doesn't think the license
> > is valid, then how are they giving permission to use,
> > modify, or distribute the code?
>
> Ah, there's more here than meets the eye.  CWI gave Guido certain
broad
> rights to Python when Guido left CWI, and Guido signed those rights
over to
> CNRI.  AFAIK, those documents are not publicly available, and I only
know
> about them because Guido happened to tell me the other day.  Guido has
no
> doubts whatsoever about CNRI's legal right to license Python however
they
> please, and neither does his legal counsel.  The only thing in dispute
here
> is whether *other* parties can rely on what the CWI license appears to
tell
> them.  At least three different lawyers so far had at least three
different
> opinions about that.  Beats me.
>
> >    "Python has never been released with a CNRI license.
> >     It's still using the CWI license it had from the very
> >     start.  That's what CNRI wants to change, although why
> >     they waited to force the issue until Python was gone is
> >     unknown to me.  CNRI does hold the copyright, though."
>
> > So CNRI actively agreed to let Python through 1.5.2 and 1.6a2
> > retain the CWI license?
>
> I've never worked at CNRI so have no knowledge about what they may or
may
> not have actively agreed to, beyond their public statements; and I'm
not
> aware of any public statement they've made relevant to this question.
 All
> releases of Python (including 1.5.2 and 1.6a2 but also extending back
to and
> including 1.3) released by CNRI came with no legal text beyond what
you can
> find by following this URL:
>
>     http://www.python.org/doc/Copyright.html
>
> >    "If enough people turn out to hate it, I personally
> >     don't see anything to stop them grabbing Python 1.6a2
> >     and building on that (1.6a2 being the last release
> >     that came with the old Python license).  For that
> >     matter, they may even be able to grab the current
> >     CVS tarball.  Whether CNRI would fight that is an,
> >     umm, "interesting" question.  I don't know what their
> >     goal is here, so it's darned hard to guess."
> >
> > Which is the interesting question?
>
> Both whether CNRI would fight someone grabbing the source for Python
1.6a2
> and building a derivative work from that, and likewise except building
from
> the current CVS tarball instead.
>
> > Is it about using the current CVS tarball or is about using
> > 1.6a2 or 1.5.2?
>
> I didn't mention 1.5.2 in the above, so that was clearly not my
meaning.
> However, I happen to think that would also be an interesting question
> <wink>.  Ditto substituting any other version of Python after 1.2 (1.2
is
> the last release of Python made by CWI).
>
> ok-time-for-the-punchline-ly y'rs  - tim
>
>


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