(offtopic) RE: [Python-Dev] Python 2.0 license and GPL (Splitting up _cursesmodule)

[Tim Peters]

[MAL]
> About the GPL issue: as I understood Guido's post, RMS still regards
> the choice of law clause as being incompatible to the GPL

Yes.  Actually, I don't know what RMS really thinks -- his public opinions
on legal issues appear to be echoes of what Eben Moglen tells him.  Like his
views or not, Moglen is a tenured law professor

> (heck, doesn't this guy ever think about international trade terms,
> the United Nations Convention on International Sale of Goods
> or local law in one of the 200+ countries where you could deploy
> GPLed software...

Yes.

> is the GPL only meant for US programmers ?).

No.  Indeed, that's why the GPL is grounded in copyright law, because
copyright law is the most uniform (across countries) body of law we've got.
Most commentary I've seen suggests that the GPL has its *weakest* legal legs
in the US!

> I am currently rewriting my open source licenses as well and among
> other things I chose to integrate a choice of law clause as well.
> Seeing RMS' view of things, I guess that my license will be regarded
> as incompatible to the GPL

Yes.

> which is sad even though I'm in good company... e.g. the Apache
> license, the Zope license, etc. Dual licensing is not possible as
> it would reopen the loop-wholes in the GPL I tried to fix in my
> license. Any idea on how to proceed ?

You can wait to see how the CNRI license turns out, then copy it if it's
successful; you can approach the FSF directly; you can stop trying to do it
yourself and reuse some license that's already been blessed by the FSF; or
you can give up on GPL compatibility (according to the FSF).  I don't see
any other choices.

> Another issue: since Python doesn't link Python scripts, is it
> still true that if one (pure) Python package is covered by the GPL,
> then all other packages needed by that application will also fall
> under GPL ?

Sorry, couldn't make sense of the question.  Just as well, since you should
ask about it on a GNU forum anyway <wink>.