
On startup, the current CVS python reports (on my system) Python 2.0b1 (#31, Jul 1 2000, 23:13:39) [GCC 2.95.2 19991024 (release)] on linux2 Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam Copyright 1995-2000 Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) Now that the file copyrights are changed, I expect this message to change as well. May I suggest that, instead of adding another line, the two last lines of this message are removed? People who need to find out who holds the copyright to this software still can print sys.copyright. Regards, Martin

I think I recall this was a convention that the GNU folks claim is required from a legal standpoint. E.g. when I start gdb, I get: GNU gdb 4.18 Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux". (gdb) The Python welcome message is a lot less verbose! But I am not a lawyer (IANAL) and maybe the GNU folks are superstitious about this. On the other hand, why does it bother you? (*NOT* a rhetorical question.) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://dinsdale.python.org/~guido/)

Guido van Rossum <guido@beopen.com>:
On the other hand, why does it bother you? (*NOT* a rhetorical question.)
Maybe he doesn't like noisy programs. I don't either. Programs should either (a) tell me what I need to hear, (b) tell me what I've asked to hear, or (c) keep their traps shut and refrain from wasting my time and attention. (There are some who would say this atttude makes me old-fashioned in an age of GUIs. Au contraire -- visual gewgaws and noise are so seductive to interface designers that we need to be *less* tolerant of noise than formerly.) -- <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond</a> The men and women who founded our country knew, by experience, that there are times when the free person's answer to oppressive government has to be delivered with a bullet. Thus, the right to bear arms is not just *a* freedom; it's the mother of all freedoms. Don't let them disarm you!

On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 09:48:17PM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
Agreed. I've prefer not to have several lines of spammage hit my screen whenever I invoked Python. What's the point? And note there isn't a license requirement to print that stuff. Cheers, -g -- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

On Tue, Jul 04, 2000 at 12:31:11PM +1000, Mark Hammond wrote:
*rofl*
[Not really, of course, but the sexist comparison was just _screaming_ to be made :-]
Sexist? Not at all. You didn't say whether your perfect partner was a man or a woman. ;-) Cheers, -g -- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

I think I recall this was a convention that the GNU folks claim is required from a legal standpoint. E.g. when I start gdb, I get: GNU gdb 4.18 Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type "show copying" to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type "show warranty" for details. This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux". (gdb) The Python welcome message is a lot less verbose! But I am not a lawyer (IANAL) and maybe the GNU folks are superstitious about this. On the other hand, why does it bother you? (*NOT* a rhetorical question.) --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://dinsdale.python.org/~guido/)

Guido van Rossum <guido@beopen.com>:
On the other hand, why does it bother you? (*NOT* a rhetorical question.)
Maybe he doesn't like noisy programs. I don't either. Programs should either (a) tell me what I need to hear, (b) tell me what I've asked to hear, or (c) keep their traps shut and refrain from wasting my time and attention. (There are some who would say this atttude makes me old-fashioned in an age of GUIs. Au contraire -- visual gewgaws and noise are so seductive to interface designers that we need to be *less* tolerant of noise than formerly.) -- <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric S. Raymond</a> The men and women who founded our country knew, by experience, that there are times when the free person's answer to oppressive government has to be delivered with a bullet. Thus, the right to bear arms is not just *a* freedom; it's the mother of all freedoms. Don't let them disarm you!

On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 09:48:17PM -0400, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
Agreed. I've prefer not to have several lines of spammage hit my screen whenever I invoked Python. What's the point? And note there isn't a license requirement to print that stuff. Cheers, -g -- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/

On Tue, Jul 04, 2000 at 12:31:11PM +1000, Mark Hammond wrote:
*rofl*
[Not really, of course, but the sexist comparison was just _screaming_ to be made :-]
Sexist? Not at all. You didn't say whether your perfect partner was a man or a woman. ;-) Cheers, -g -- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
participants (6)
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Eric S. Raymond
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Fred L. Drake, Jr.
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Greg Stein
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Guido van Rossum
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Mark Hammond
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Martin v. Loewis