Still no new license -- but draft text available

[Guido van Rossum]

David Goodger <dgoodger at bigfoot.com> writes:

> Guido,

Note that it's a bad idea to ask me things on the newsgroup.  I don't
always have the time to read everything!  An email is always
appreciated.

> I've read over your personal web page & resume, where you state that you
> were employed by CNRI as a researcher. "The research was on mobile agents in
> distributed systems using interpreted languages. Most of the work involved
> Python..." One question that has not been answered AFAIK is this: while
> working at CNRI, what was the status of your (and others') direct work on
> the Python language itself? I get the (perhaps mistaken) impression from
> your (and others') writings that this work was (perhaps only partially) on
> your own time. Could you clarify?

I may have been using my own time, except CNRI's employment agreement
made *everything* I did (not just what I did in the 40 hours worked on
CNRI projects) subject to CNRI's ownership.  CNRI had a good
explanation for it at the time so I signed.  (Something to do with a
precedent where BBN researchers working on government funds worked 80
hour weeks, half of which was for their own profit, ended up in jail.)

> Just curious, not a bone of contention regarding the license in any way. We
> are all greatly indebted to CNRI for their direct & indirect support of
> Python over the years. I just hope the license arrives as short, as open,
> and as quickly as possible!

I already posted the proposed text.  Unfortunately this probably isn't
the *final* text since the text as it stands is not GPL compatible, as
has been said here before.  I am optimistic (but I've been fooled
before) that we'll be able to release 1.6b1 today; we have until the
final 1.6 release (planned two weeks after 1.6b1) to resolve the GPL
issue, either by convincing Stallman, or by convincing CNRI.

> Many thanks to you and everyone else involved in supporting Python.

You're welcome.  And many, MANY thanks to the community for their
support for Python!

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.pythonlabs.com/~guido/)