Permission to Showcase the Python Program
Terry Reedy
tjreedy at udel.edu
Wed Jun 10 18:46:22 EDT 2015
On 6/9/2015 10:19 AM, Leslie Bush wrote:
> I’m having trouble reaching an actual human at your organization
> as my emails get bounced back.
If you sent email to
psf at python.org <psf at python.org>
it should not have bounced, as according to
https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-legal-sig
that is the 'legal email address'.
But I do not think it really matters for your purpose.
> My name is Leslie Bush and I am the Intellectual Property Coordinator
> for The Great Courses. We produce non-credit, college-level educational
> programs on DVD and electronic formats in a lecture series.
> The lectures are recorded and then sold to the general public for-profit.
> As a didactic tool for enhancing the programs, we include in the lectures
> visual elements illustrating works of art, people, events, locations,
etc....
I am a python core developer, a member of PSF, but otherwise have no
official position. As a parent, I am familiar with The Great Courses,
having used 2 for home schooling. They were very helpful.
> We are currently producing a course with Dr. John Keyser, Professor of
> Computer Science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill,
entitled
> “Computer Science for Everyone: Programming Concepts and Exercises”
> The professor would like to use your Python program to showcase in
the course.
Great. Most of us would consider it silly for him not to. Most of us
would also urge that he use Python 3 rather than Python 2, if he is not
already.
> I am writing to see if we may have permission to do so. If permission
> is granted, we will have a copy of our license agreement sent over to
> your company’s authorizer for review and a signature.
I am not a lawyer, but am 99.990% (and I am not exaggerating) sure that
the Python license already gives you the permission you need. Our
documentation page is at
https://docs.python.org/3/
Clicking the History and License of Python link takes you to
https://docs.python.org/3/license.html
Skip to Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python
and read PSF LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 3.4.3. It is about as liberal
as can be. It was written by the PSF lawyer and is intended to be a
blanket grant of permissiond, so that the PSF will not need to employ an
'authorizer' to review and sign permissions. This is standard for
open-source software.
Companies routinely use Python and write their own public and
proprietary code. People write and sell books about Python or that
reference Python. Universities teach courses that include Python.
People post videos about Python. We WANT people to do all of these
things. They all do it without further agreements and signatures beyond
what is openly published.
I suspect that some companies paranoid about the possibility of lawsuit
may have their own lawyer review the license agreement to make sure it
means what it seems to say and that their use falls within the license.
You are free to do the same if worried.
--
Terry Jan Reedy
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