using the PSF license for one's code

David Brown david at no.westcontrol.spam.com
Wed Nov 6 03:22:19 EST 2002


"phil (at) linux2000.com" <"phil (at) linux2000.com"> wrote in message
news:3dc867de$0$24754$7b0f0fd3 at reader.news.newnet.co.uk...
> Martin v. Loewis wrote:
> >
>
> The open source community seems to be shooting itself in the foot on
> this particular issue, as far as I can see.
>

Just for comparison, can you think of any two close-source packages that
have the same licence?  Most suppliers seem to change their EULAs, Terms and
Conditions, etc., faster than they change their software.

There are basically two categories of open source licences, as far as I can
see - gpl-type licences (you can use our source, but you have to apply the
same licence to the modified code) and bsd-type licences (you can use our
source for anything you want, but you have to acknowledge the copyright).  I
am a great believer in the spirit of a licence rather than the letter of the
licence, and as far as I can see, the Python licence is in the same spirit
as the BSD licence.  I don't know how that would stand up in court, however,
but hopefully it will never have to.






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