Python Is Really Middleware

[Chris Barker]

Tim Daneliuk wrote:

> It depends on what you mean by "enclosure".  Per the point above,
> organizations, like people, need to enforce their property rights.

"need" is arguable. I think a whole lot of organizations keep their code
restricted for no good reason. Of course, some folks have good reason:
Microsoft could be a successful company if it opened up it's products,
but it would be no where near as rich!

> If a particular technology makes this impossible or very hard,
> that technology will be met by huge opposition.  I once was in
> the position of having to authorize buying Sun's 'C' compiler
> rather than using the GPLed GCC for exactly this reason.  Even though
> I, and all the engineers who worked for me, preferred GCC, I could
> not in good conscience expose my company to the possibilty  of
> being forced to reveal the inner workings of a product that
> was our key competetive distinction in the market we served.
> This sort of thing is not unusual.

Why in the world was this a possibility??? I can see that paranoid
non-lawyer non-techie execs might think so, but while the GPL can be
considered a virus, it is not very contagious. It only acts that way if
you want to include GPL'd code in your code base, not if you want to use
the output from an executable that happens to be built from the GPL.
This is very well accepted. If you wanted to add functionality to gcc
itself, and keep that private, that's another question, but I don't
think Sun would let you do that either: unless you gave them a LOT of
money!

> This, BTW, is why the GPL is under attack and people are looking
> for alternatives.

Not exactly. There is no problem with using a GPL'd tool to run any part
of your business. The only thing you can't do is include GPL'd code
itself in a proprietary product. That, of course, is a good reason for
libraries and other components that you might want to include with
proprietary software (such as Python) not to be GPL'd. Even if the
CPython interpreter were to be GPL'd you could still develop proprietary
software with it, but you could not include the interpreter, or part of
it in your own app. This ability, of course is very useful, so it's a
good thing it has a more liberal license.

By the way, even the FSF acknowledges this, which is why the LGPL
exists.


-Chris


-- 
Christopher Barker,
Ph.D.                                                           
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