Re: Re: "License: Perl" considered harmful [Was: "Python" license]
Joe Wreschnig <piman@debian.org>
> MJ Ray <mjr@phonecoop.coop> wrote:
> > Personally, I'm not bothered if people put "under the same terms
> > as otherthing" as we can do a reasonable substitution and I doubt
> > anyone would have a problem with that, would they?
>
> I think it's a problem. Did you read the document I wrote?
Yes. Do I think it's confusing and exaggerates? Yes.
> "Under the
> same terms as C" is crazy, so why do we accept "Under the same terms as
> Python" when there are 3 major distributions of Python with wildly
> different licensing terms? And even within those distributions, the
> licensing is not homogeneous.
Lack of clarity is a problem, but there are many cases of otherthing
which are clearer than the irrelevant C example. Isn't "under the
same terms as Python" under all current and future PSF Python licences at
the time of writing, similar to licensing under GPL version 2 or later?
Now, you can argue that it's a silly thing to do, but licensors granting
silly licences is not new. Who cares as long as it follows DFSG somehow?
> "Python" is a language, not a program, and does not have a license.
> Alternately, "Python" is a distribution of a language and standard
> library, and has many licenses (with potentially conflicting terms). In
> neither case is "Under the same terms as Python" acceptable.
The primary implementation is widely known as Python and the main
interpreter has a particular licence. That seems obvious. That's
different to C, Lisp or Scheme, which each have many implementations,
none more authoritative than the others.
I think most of these will be obvious. If you suspect someone of
building a lawyerbomb, ask them for confirmation of the specifics,
but I think suggesting relicensing to all is overreacting to this.
> These arguments apply mutatis mutandis to most languages I'm aware of.
Please use English on debian-legal, not Latin.
Bonvole,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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