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Why so few Python jobs? (and licenses)

Paul Rubin phr-n2001d at nightsong.com
Tue Oct 9 04:03:34 EDT 2001 
paul at boddie.net (Paul Boddie) writes:
> I would seriously doubt that any of the libraries distributed with
> Python are GPL licenced. Indeed, options such as the readline module
> remain just that: optional. So, there seems to have been an explicit
> policy of avoiding "GPL by stealth".

That's a good policy--whatever license one uses, it should be stated
up front and not slipped in by stealth.

> However, there are a number of useful packages which have GPL
> licences. I was asked to update the Python Web modules page which I
> maintain some time ago with licence information, purely so that people
> could see which modules/frameworks weren't worth evaluating because of
> the licence, and there are a lot of them with GPL licences - it's
> quite surprising.

I don't understand why it's surprising--the GPL is by far the most
common license on Sourceforge, so it's natural that Python module
licenses would follow the same pattern.

> I don't want to start a mindless debate about the benefits or evils of
> GPL licensing, but usage of the GPL and any resulting success of a
> particular project is probably quite dependent on the scale or
> adoption of that project, along with how unique or interesting it is.
> In many cases, based on observation of people's behaviour or attitude
> alone, it seems that putting a GPL licence on a project at an early
> stage is like putting a "do not touch" sign on it.

Maybe for some but not others.  I'm far more likely to volunteer to
contribute to a GPL'd project than a non-GPL'd one.  I have nothing
against non-GPL'd programs, but if I'm going to do product development
for a closed source company, I expect to get paid for it.
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