Urgent Question about Python licensing

[Dave LeBlanc]

On Sun, 11 Mar 2001 01:01:08 -0500, "Tim Peters" <tim.one at home.com>
wrote:

>[Dave LeBlanc]
>> When UCITA first came out, there was a lot of press about it's evils.
>
>There still is!  There was also a lot of discussion about it on
>comp.lang.python, specifically in relation to the 1.6 CNRI license at the
>time.  You need to read the license and the actual text of UCITA to get
>anywhere with this -- or ask a lawyer.  Whether UCITA is good or bad, the 1.6
>license grants you very strong rights, and UCITA can't magically negate
>those.
>
>From what I read, UCITA can't magically negate any rights unless it's
agreed on by the parties.

>> ...
>> However, after reviewing information at http://www.ucitaonline.com/
>> and at http://www.2bguide.com, I came to the conclusion that i'd been
>> mislead. Imagine! being mislead by the press! <g>.  (I should have
>> known better - i'm a firm believer in the "believe none of what you
>> hear and only half of what you read" school of thought.)
>
>Both of those are UCITA advocacy sites, and set up by the same lawyer (Carol
>Kunze, who "attended the UCITA drafting committee meetings from 1996 -
>1999").  So on *those* sites, believe the negative halves (if you can find
>any <0.5 wink>).
>
Some of the referenced news items are negative, but I don't think the
_really_ negative ones are linked <g>

>> ...
>> As it turns out, after the fact license changes are NOT binding,
>> "shrink wrap" or "click wrap" licenses ARE binding and have been
>> upheld by the courts, can't make a bogus venue choice, and that a
>> licensor CAN unilaterally disable software but only after a 2 week
>> warning in many cases.
>
>Note that what UCITA says is irrelevant unless read *in conjunction* with
>what the 1.6 license says.  For example, section 308(2)(B) of UCITA holds
>that the license is *perpetual* if "the license expressly grants the right to
>incorporate or use the licensed information or informational rights with
>information or informational rights from other sources in a combined work for
>public distribution or public performance.".  The CNRI 1.6 license does so
>expressly grant both rights.  I am not a lawyer, but I can read -- so can
>you.  UCITA simply doesn't kick in except where the 1.6 license leaves holes,
>and CNRI didn't intend to leave any holes.  IMO (and IANAL), the GPL does
>leave holes, and that's the fundamental source of the conflict (when CNRI
>plugs a hole that the GPL doesn't, that's "a restriction" not in the GPL,
>hence automatically leaves the CNRI license "incompatible" with the latter,
>which forbids additional restrictions of *any* kind).
>
>> ...
>> Moving along, I find it ironic that the Open Software Foundation calls
>> the GPL an open source license since it violates the rules given for
>> such. GPL software has source available, but it's use is constrained
>> and contaminating (unlike the GLL library license).
>
>I see that they've added a footnote to point 9 at
>
>    http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.html
>
>It reads:
>
>    Yes, the GPL is conformant with this requirement.  GPLed
>    libraries "contaminate" only software to which they will actively
>    be linked at runtime, not software with which they are merely
>    distributed.
>
My notion of open software is more BSD license-ish then GPL - which
places restraints upon reuse in an unacceptable (to me and a lot of
others AFAIK) way. I recall from the GPL that "mere agregation" of GPL
and non-GPL programs on the same media doesn't contaminate the non-GPL
software.

Even Sun's "Sun Internet Standards License" is more user-friendly then
GPL.

>I'm unsure whether they added that before or after your post, though <wink>.
>
>> P.S Guido is welcome to my first born if I ever have one - but he has
>> to do his own cooking.
>
>guido-does-not-eat-children-neither-cooked-nor-raw-ly y'rs  - tim
>
>
Hey, you offerred your first born to Guido first! <g>

Dave LeBlanc