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The State of Python

ObiJohn obijohn at my-deja.com
Thu Jul 27 16:10:21 EDT 2000 
In article <LNBBLJKPBEHFEDALKOLCEEGAGMAA.tim_one at email.msn.com>,
  "Tim Peters" <tim_one at email.msn.com> wrote:
>[snip]
> I'm not a lawyer either (as you well know <wink>), but at least in
America
> you hold copyright on your works whether or not you state it
explicitly.
> Curiously, the CNRI disclaimer form didn't say anything about
copyright.
>

I *am* a lawyer and I think a distinction needs to be made (maybe
obviously) between a "license" and a "copyright". A copyright, as the
name implies, gives the author the _right_ to control the _copy_ of his
work. If this control is extended to others, it is done so in the form
of a license. Contrary to what some may think, placing a work in the
public domain is not issuing a "free-for-all" license; it completely
removes the copyright. Thereafter, not even the original author can
claim to hold the copyright or any form of license. However, a license
on a copyrighted work may allow unrestricted use of the work and still
retain the copyright. This is important because the holder of the
copyright may later change the license.

There is no "magic" in making a license. Indeed the Python 1.5.2 is a
valid form of license. What the CNRI lawyers mean is that there are too
many holes in it for a lawyer's taste. Lawyers *hate* short, consise
contracts and licenses simply because it is so easy to make them appear
to contain loopholes, even if the author did not intend it. Efforts to
close those loopholes results in licenses like the GPL. Unfortunately,
lawyers many times introduce more holes than they plug, and other
lawyers step in to plug those... just look at the GPL/QT wrangling.

Is there a simple answer? Not when the lawyers are involed! I would be
greatly surprised if they were satisfied in 2 days.

-- John Stoneham, Beaumont, Texas
Life is too short: Program with Python!


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