[4th Draft] Open Letter to CNRI: Request for clarification

[Thomas Wouters]

On Mon, Jul 31, 2000 at 11:53:13PM +0000, Peter Schneider-Kamp wrote:

> Will Ware wrote:
> > 
> > 1. CNRI legally owns Python, up to version 1.6. You and I don't have
> > any legal rights of any kind in this matter. The user community does
> > not collectively have any legal rights in this matter. We are extremely
> > dependent upon CNRI's good will.

> I doubt that. As far as I understood the matter Python 1.5.2
> was released under the old CWI license. Am I missing something?

Probably, but who isn't ! 'Ownership' of Python and the Licence that Python
is distributed under, however, are two entirely different things. Indeed,
'ownership' of what ? Of the source code ? Of the 'python' name ? Of the
Python language ? As far as I can tell, we're all talking about ownership of
the source, and that hasn't much to do with who wrote the licence that is
currently in use. Note that the 1.5.2 licence does mention CNRI, so it's not
like they 'forgot' to change the licence when Guido fled Amsterdam.

Only-to-return-a-world-leader-twenty-years-later-ly y'rs,

PS: Even if CNRI does 'own' Python, which is likely,  I don't think the
'until version 1.6' holds up! What if CNRI decides to make a 1.7 ? <wink>

-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas at xs4all.net>

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