AW: Pure python standard library and License

M

Markus Schaber

Hi, Terry,

Von: Terry Reedy
Your interpretation seems reasonable, but only a paid lawyer (or
ultimately a judge) can 'confirm' a legal interpretation. Sorry, we
programmers generally hate the system.

I also am a programmer, and not a lawyer.

And our paid lawyer cannot look into the code (where most files do not
even actually have any copyright header) and magically guess which of
the files might be covered by the Berkeley license.

In the meantime, we found
http://docs.python.org/release/2.6.6/license.html which has some better
descriptions of which license applies to which part of the code, but
that file is not equal to the LICENSE.txt which was distributed with the
IronPython installer nor with the Python 2.6 binary distribution we
installed.

This is why he asked us to confirm with the developers of python that
none of the non-copyright-annotated .py files in the standard library
are actually covered by the Berkeley license.
of the licensors are looking to play gotcha and I do not know that there
have been any court cases involving Python.
I presume you are using some version of Python 2.

As the last stable version of IronPython implements Python 2.6, I
conclude that the installer includes the standard library in a 2.6
compatible version - however, it seems not to be the version distributed
with cPython 2.6.6.
In 3.2, the license file has the four general licenses (CWI, CNRI,
BeOpen, PSF) in one section and 16 specific licenses related to various
library modules (each identified) in another. There is no BSD license
because bsddb in no longer included.

That also applies to the published license for cPython 2.6.6 (link
above) which lacks the Berkeley license, but not the license actually
installed with the installer (which still contains the bsddb module). It
identifies itself as:
| Python 2.6.6 (r266:84297, Aug 24 2010, 18:46:32) [MSC v.1500 32 bit
(Intel)] on win32
You could take the disappearance of the BD licence with the
disappearance of the bsddb module as confirmation of your hypothesis;-).

It is a strong indicator, but no guarantee that all the .py files
without copyright headers are not covered by the Berkeley license.

Thanks for your efforts!

Best regards,

Markus Schaber
--
We software Automation.

3S-Smart Software Solutions GmbH
Markus Schaber | Developer
Memminger Str. 151 | 87439 Kempten | Germany | Tel. +49-831-54031-0 |
Fax +49-831-54031-50

Email: (e-mail address removed) | Web: http://www.3s-software.com
CoDeSys internet forum: http://forum.3s-software.com
Download CoDeSys sample projects:
http://www.3s-software.com/index.shtml?sample_projects

Managing Directors: Dipl.Inf. Dieter Hess, Dipl.Inf. Manfred Werner |
Trade register: Kempten HRB 6186 | Tax ID No.: DE 167014915
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
473,743
Messages
2,569,478
Members
44,898
Latest member
BlairH7607

Latest Threads

Top