The State of Python

[Chris Lawrence]

On Thu, 27 Jul 2000 18:37:14 -0400, Tim Peters <tim_one at email.msn.com> wrote:
>The old Python license served it very well for a decade.  The new Python
>license will almost certainly also be OSI certified, *compatible* with the
>GPL, and allow proprietary commercial use.  What we haven't been able to
>avoid is massively unproductive legal wrangling -- but nothing can guarantee
>to save you from that.

FWIW, if the license is incompatible with the GPL, we'll end up with
another license pissing contest like the GPL/QPL one.  It might lead
to trouble with distributing binaries of the readline module, for
example.  I hope BeOpen and/or CNRI are keeping RMS in the loop on
this one, as I think that was the problem that led to the neverending
QPL squabble.

(In any event: do the loopholes matter to CNRI?  They own the
copyright.  They can do whatever they damn well please with the code.
The only problem that could ever occur is if CNRI suddenly started
suing people for infringement... and can anyone name a way to infringe
upon the Python license that would actually be worth contesting in a
court of law?  You could piss and moan about violating the attribution
clause, but I can't see that being worth hiring lawyers about.)


Chris (not speaking on behalf of Debian and waiting for the ./
flamefest this weekend)
-- 
=============================================================================
|        Chris Lawrence       |  Your source for almost nothing of value:   |
|   <quango at watervalley.net>  |          http://www.lordsutch.com/          |
|                             |                                             |
|   Grad Student, Pol. Sci.   |     Join the party that opposed the CDA     |
|  University of Mississippi  |             http://www.lp.org/              |
=============================================================================