Thanks you (was: Re: [Spambayes] How do I...)

Tim Peters tim.one at comcast.net
Mon Aug 18 21:27:48 EDT 2003


[David McNab]
> ...
> As regards license - I'm accustomed to GPL-style licenses, whereby
> people have total freedom to download/use/modify/redistribute.

Then perhaps you'd like the PSF license better:  unlike the GPL, the PSF
license doesn't dictate anything about the licensing terms derived works are
allowed to use.  It's closer to the LGPL than the GPL in that way.  It's
closest to the BSD and MIT licenses, but has more words than those because
too many lawyers were involved in drafting it <wink/sigh>.

> I'm not sure I'd be willing to gift away copyright ownership, because
> it could prevent me from having the same freedoms myself, and stop me
> from building my work into an (open source) commercial product at a
> later time.

It wouldn't stop you from building on it later, not even if you wanted to
use it in a closed-source commercial product.  For example, there's at least
one closed-source product that builds on the spambayes code.  That's fine
under the PSF license -- they don't even have to ask for permission.  If you
want to force those folks to make their product open-source too, then the
PSF license isn't for you.

> Can you please clarify?

Dealing with lawyers is an expensive PITA, and one easy way to avoid legal
hassles is to stick to a single copyright holder and a single license.
That's what we're doing here now.  The PSF is currently paying a lawyer to
review forms allowing "shared ownership" of copyright, so that someone so
inclined can contribute code to the PSF without giving up their copyright
entirely.  God only knows how long that will take to complete.  Until then,
I'm afraid almost no code is worth the hassle of dealing with multiple
copyrights.

You might find the PSF's Mission Statement comforting <wink>:

    http://www.python.org/psf/mission.html

Note that because the PSF is a public charity under US tax law, it's
constrained to act in the public interest, and its assets can't be
transferred except to another public charity or government agency.  So, for
example, there's no possiblity that a PSF copyright will end up being owned
by, say, Microsoft someday -- unless, of course, Microsoft becomes the
government <0.9 wink>.




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