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Does Python license permit embedding in commercial product ?

Cliff Wells logiplexsoftware at earthlink.net
Thu Oct 11 17:58:09 EDT 2001 
On Thursday 11 October 2001 14:18, Russell Turpin wrote:
> This is sort of the opposite case of wanting to sell a program
> written in Python, which clearly is allowed.  Consider a
> commercial product that needs a scripting language.  One
> obvious way to achieve this, which I'm sure all here would
> encourage, is to (a) embed Python in the product, then when
> a script for the product is invoked to (b) create a code object
> from the script, (c) bind Python variables to appropriate
> internal state, (d) execute the code object, and (e) update
> internal state from Python variables.
>
> All of this can be done without modifying Python's source
> code. (I hope. I haven't actually tried this, but the principle
> seems clear.) The question is whether doing so infringes on
> Python's license, given that the product is commercially sold,
> and maybe even some of the scripts subsequently provided. My
> naive reading is that this is OK. But I thought I would seek
> the broader opinion here.

I believe there are several commercial applications that use Python as a 
scripting language, here's a couple:

Blender (yes, there's both commercial and free versions -  and they are 
different, in fact, I believe Python support was at one time only available 
in the commercial version)
http://www.blendermania.com/tutorials/tutor/theiceman/genodoespython.php3

Poser
http://www.curiouslabs.com/products/proPack/python/

and probably many more.

-- 
Cliff Wells
Software Engineer
Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net)
(503) 978-6726 x308
(800) 735-0555 x308
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