[Python-Dev] ActiveState & fork & Perl

[Tim Peters]

[MarkH]
> ...
> And Ive got to say that personally, such an offer would be highly
> attractive.  Depending on the terms (and I must admit I have not
> had a good look at the ActiveState Perl licenses) this could provide
> a real boost to the Python world.

I find the ActivePerl license to be quite confusing:

    http://www.activestate.com/ActivePerl/commlic.htm

It appears to say flatly that you can't distribute it yourself, although
other pages on the site say "sure, go ahead!".  Also seems to imply you
can't modify their code (they explicitly allow you to install patches
obtained from ActiveState -- but that's all they mention).

OTOH, they did a wonderful job on the Perl for Win32 port (a difficult port
in the face of an often-hostile Perl community), and gave all the code back
to the Perl folk.  I've got no complaints about them so far.

> If the business model is open source software with paid-for support, it
> seems a win-win situation to me.

"Part of our business model is to sell value added, proprietary
components."; e.g., they sell a Perl Development Kit for $100, and so on.
Fine by me!  If I could sell tabnanny ... well, I wouldn't do that to anyone
<wink>.

would-like-to-earn-$1-from-python-before-he-dies-ly y'rs  - tim