Use of GPLed Python extension modules

[Paul Boddie]

pmaupin at speakeasy.net (Patrick Maupin) wrote in message news:<653b7547.0311231952.5abe71ab at posting.google.com>...
> 
> My understanding is that clisp became GPL because Stallman claimed
> that its use of readline forced the author to release it under the
> GPL, and since the author was basically making free software anyway,
> and more concerned about the software than the license, he
> agreed to change the license fairly readily.

Surely the Python community has been through this already with a
definitive outcome. There's a readline module (whose use is optional)
distributed with Python which uses an appropriate readline library
present on the user's system when Python is installed. However, Python
isn't distributed with the readline library itself because that would
cause the resulting distribution to be available only under the GPL.

I do seem to remember something about non-GPL readline equivalents
which may come into play here, but I don't think that's relevant to
how Python is distributed or installed today. It might also be
interesting to look at the licensing of the Debian packages for
Python, but then the dynamic linking aspects of GPL licensing may also
be involved there, too.

One wonders why the FSF doesn't have a "GPL licensing wizard" on their
Web site. ;-)

Paul