Open Letter to CNRI: Clarification on Python licensing

[Peter Schneider-Kamp]

Dear Dr. Kahn,

Many people in the Python community have concerns about the license
issues that have popped up around the new 1.6/2.0 releases.

The following attached signatures represent people from the Python
community who would like some clarification regarding the future of the
Python language. To date, there has been no official statement from
your institution regarding the new Python license. We are especially
interested in the overall intent of this change. So we request a
plain-English, non-legalese statement regarding the purpose of that
change and the ways in which it affects Python's use (GPL compatibility,
embedding in proprietary software, etc.).

We recognize that such a statement cannot substitute for the license
itself, but it will give us all a background with which to evaluate the
license.

Kind regards,
Peter Schneider-Kamp
--
Peter Schneider-Kamp          ++47-7388-7331
Herman Krags veg 51-11        mailto:peter at schneider-kamp.de
N-7050 Trondheim              http://schneider-kamp.de
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Aahz <aahz at pobox.com>
Jeff Bauer (Rubicon Research)
J?rgen A. Erhard <jae at ilk.de>
Martijn Faassen <m.faassen at vet.uu.nl>
Stuart Ford (Programmer/Analyst E.H. Boeckh Corporation)
Niklas Frykholm
Jay Graves
Magnus Lie Hetland (Ph.D. student Computer Science)
Konrad Hinsen (Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire CNRS)
Michael Hudson <mwh at python.net> (maths grad student, Python developer)
Yakov Markovitch <markovitch at iso.ru> (Lead Programmer, InterSoft Lab)
Gareth McCaughan
David Mertz <mertz at gnosis.cx> ("Charming Python" column, IBM developerWorks)
Michael Morrision (CGI python programmer for Live Wire Group Network)
Mikael Olofsson <mikael at isy.liu.se> (PhD student in EE)
E. Jason Riedy <jason at acm.org>
Terry J. Reedy
Dag Sunde (Software "Carpenter" Orion Systems As, Arendal, Norway)
Will Ware
Lars von Wedel <vonWedel at lfpt.rwth-aachen.de> (Systems Architect Process Systems Engineering Technical University of Aachen, Germany)
Thomas Weholt
Thomas Wouters (Systems Architect, Python developer)
Moshe Zadka <moshez at math.huji.ac.il> (mathematician, Python developer)