[5th Draft] Open Letter to CNRI: Request for clarification

[Jeremy Hylton]

"Tim Peters" <tim_one at email.msn.com> writes:

> But while the OSI can credibly pronounce on the license's Open Source
> status, and the FSF (via RMS) can do so for its GPL-compatibility status,
> people using Python in proprietary ways are going to have to judge the
> license for themselves.  This was also true of the CWI licence [...]

I do not understand what further concerns people doing proprietary
development might have.  The Open Source Definition --
    http://www.opensource.org/osd.html
-- says that no party may be restricted from selling or giving away
the software.  If you want to ship Python with a proprietary product,
that should be okay.  It also says modified versions must be
distributable under the same terms.  If you want to modify Python (add
curly braces or whatever else), you still are allowed to sell it or
give it away for free.
   
The specific text of the definition is:

>1. Free Redistribution
>
>The license may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the
>software as a component of an aggregate software distribution
>containing programs from several different sources. The license may
>not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

>3. Derived Works
>
>The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow
>them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the
>original software.

The one concern I can imagine is the second half of this section.  It
says the license must allow them to be distributed under the same
terms.  I imagine that some proprietary developers may want to
distribution a modified version under a more restrictive license,
e.g. fork it, close the source, and sell a product.  An OSI-compatible
license could allow this kind of distribution, but isn't required to.

Now I personally imagine that the CNRI license would allow proprietary
redistribution, but my opinion holds about much weight as Barry's.  It
would be helpful to hear what a lawyer thinks.

Is that the chief concern for proprietary developers?  I would guess
that relatively few proprietary shops are interested in developing a
variant of Python, although I'm sure some are.  

isn't-comp.lang.python-the-pythonlabs-watercooler?-ly y'rs,
Jeremy

-- Jeremy Hylton <http://www.python.org/~jeremy/>