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Does Python license permit embedding in commercial product ?

Russell Turpin russell_turpin at hotmail.com
Thu Oct 11 17:18:15 EDT 2001 
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.

(Obviously, if we do extend Python in any way, we'll release 
*that* code. But that's not currently in the plans.)

Russell
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