[Python-Dev] Incorporating bsddb3

[M.-A. Lemburg]

Guido van Rossum wrote:
>>>Not in the source distro, but it will end up in the RPMs and other
>>>binary distros.
>>
>>But that would violate the Sleepycat license; we are not shipping
>>readline or a module which statically links against readline
>>in the binary distros for the same reason.
> 
> It only violates the Sleepycat license if (a) we don't include
> that license with the RPM or (b) we include closed-source code in that
> RPM.  We're violating only (a) AFAIK and that's easily fixed.

Ok.

>>As I understand, the BSD version shipped with Python so far
>>is using a standard BSD style license, so there's no problem
>>with it. However, Sleepycat added a copyleft kind of restriction
>>to the BSD license which makes this troublesome, esp. since the
>>restriction is not at all clear about what "use of the DB software"
>>really means. Their web-page on this is:
>>
>>     http://www.sleepycat.com/licensing.html
>>
>>Also, the Sleepycat license is not compatible with the Python
>>license in the sense that the Python license is far less
>>restrictive than the Sleepycat one. We'd have to make it very
>>clear that we have integrated third-party code into the
>>archive which falls under a much more restrictive license.
>>(FWIW, It would actually be wise to summarize all the different
>>licenses in the Python distro somewhere...)
>>
>>So back to my original question: why go through all these
>>troubles ?
> 
> We're not planning to incorporate Sleepycat code in the python
> source distribution.  But if setup.py builds bsddb if it finds the
> parts, it's hard to keep the Sleepycat binaries in the RPMs.

It's not like it's impossible, though :-). Ideal would be to have
the Python module link against the shared lib of the Sleepycat DB
(if that's possible).

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
CEO eGenix.com Software GmbH
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