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Copyright Notice in Commercial Software

Andrew Dalke dalke at acm.org
Fri Jun 2 00:04:22 EDT 2000 
t_e_sanders at my-deja.com wrote:
>Do the terms of Python's distribution license require me to allow other
>users to copy and distribute my software? I would guess not, but
>inclusion of this notice in my package explicitly states so. There's
>obviously something I'm missing,

The key word is "use".

The copyright only applies to the Python code.  You are free to add
your own code to Python, which is under your own copyright.  The
clause you quoted allows you to use the Python code with your own
code, regardless of the license applied to your own code.

The GPL, which you are probably thinking of, does not allow similarly
unfettered use of their code.  Packages compiled with GPL code
restrict their use to only GPL-compatible licenses.

The inclusion of the statement in code you distribute only applies to
Python code.  Someone could copy that portion of the source from your
program and use it elsewhere.  However, since it's already available
from python.org, there nothing new revealed.

But remember, I-am-not-a-lawyer.

                    Andrew
                    dalke at acm.org
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