[SciPy-user] Python(x,y) - New release 1.1.0

[Pearu Peterson]

On Thu, April 17, 2008 10:03 am, Python(x,y) wrote:
>> On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 11:07 PM, Neal Becker <ndbecker2 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Python(x,y) is restricted to only use for non-profit?
>>
>> Seems like that according to:
>>
>> http://pythonxy.com/license.php
>>
>> Just a couple days ago there used to be an open source license. Well,
>> that reduces me interest a lot, as I am not really motivated to
>> contribute to a non-opensource solution.
>>
>> Ondrej
>
> I am very sorry for all this misunderstanding.
> First of all, the Non-profit OSL is an open-source license. And obviously
> it is the software collection which is licensed under it, not the
> individual packages which all remain under their own license/copyright (so
> the only restriction is that any "derived work" would be under Non-profit
> OSL : but software created using Python(x,y) is absolutely NOT a "derived
> work" - on the contrary, another software based on Python(x,y) would be a
> "derived work").
>
> Anyway, I try to keep an open mind, and I have no interest in explaining
> or defending this license in particular. So, as I posted earlier, I can
> switch to OSL v3 if this remains ambiguous to a lot of people.

I think everyone has the right to choose whatever license s/he will
use for its software and not feel bad about it. PERIOD.

In many cases BSD license is preferred because
this allows using it most freely, both in open source as well as
commercial products. In that sense BSD seems to most suitable for library
type of software provided that the author of software wants that the
product can be used as wildly as possible - that is basically the aim
of creating library type of software anyway.

On the other hand, BSD license may not be suitable for end products
as anyone could take the code and start selling it without having
obligations to the original author. Here it is appropriate to
think of protecting the work by choosing another license from BSD.
(Note that selling library software can be very difficult and hence
the need to protect such libraries from selling as products, has higher
threshold.)
It seems that Python(x,y) falls more to the category of end products
rather than being a library like software and choosing a more restricted
license seems appropriate.
I think it is great that such software are released as open source at all.

Regards,
Pearu