BSDDB copyright and licensing restrictions while in use via Python

[Warren Postma]

I am reading over the BSDDB license (bsddb is owned by sleepycat software)
and it appears that you can't compile and link the source code to the BSDDB
to a proprietary (non-free) application without paying Sleepycat.

Fine, no problem.  Then I checked out their prices. Can you say $10K and up?
Excuse me!?

So here's my dilemma:

I have a commercial application into which I want to embed the Python
interpreter (fine, no problem so far). The standard Python distribution
comes with the bsddb.pyd binary which is a plug in containing a compiled
version of the db1.8.5 source code. Since Python is available for free, and
is open source, and it can be redistributed freely, then can I do this?

Has the db1.8.5 source code a more liberal license than the 2.0 code from
Sleepycat?

Can I legally embed Python into my commercial application, use a stock
bsddb.pyd binary file giving me the BSD DB functions to store my data, which
is still being used exactly as it would have been used in Python, and then
add commercial proprietary extensions to Python (some as .pyd plug ins, and
some compiled right into the main executable) and yet still not have
violated the letter of the BSDDB license?  I'd ask SleepyCat this question,
but I suspect they are smoking too much cheap weed over there if they think
that someone will pay thousands of dollars for a license to software which
they also allow you to freely download the source code to. What a strange
company.

A second query, can I avoid all this and use a workalike library from
somewhere else? Is there a BSD-licensed bsddb library?

Warren Postma