[py-dev] execnet / GPL licensing

[holger krekel]

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 19:13 +1000, Gordon Wrigley wrote:
> Disclaimer: I appreciate that no one here is an IP lawyer and that any
> discussion doesn't count as legal advice.

sure. Please also don't take my statements as legal advise, btw :)
I know some good lawyers knowledgable in open source stuff, 
one of them having been a programmer before, so they can 
help if it comes to it :) 
 
> Just so I'm clear, as I understand it, if execnet were GPL then:
> 1: It would still be free (beer) for us to use and abuse any way we
> choose internally as long as we aren't distributing anything related
> to it.
> 2: Any modifications we made to it and distributed would be subject to
> GPL or the alternate license.
> 3: Any code derived from it that we distributed would be subject to
> GPL or the alternate license.
> 4: Any code that imports it that we distribute would be subject to GPL
> or the alternate license.
> 5: Alternatively the LGPL picture would be the same except 4 wouldn't apply.
> 
> Please correct me if any of that is wrong.

that's also my understanding. 

> Assuming it is all correct then I have no problems with 1-3.
> 
> Point 4 could be interesting, now the obvious scenario here would seem
> to be that we write some tool that uses execnet and wish to sell it
> and or make it publicly available. That scenario I have no problem
> with it is part and parcel of building things out of open source
> components. Indeed in that vein we have an internal tool that uses
> execnet that we are looking at distributing as open source. As you
> said "execnet presents a unique and valuable approach to glueing
> Python interpreters and doing rapid deployment". And the system we
> have built around it pushes that approach further and we would like to
> share that.

cool.  Curious i am :)
 
> But there is a more subtle example that concerns me, we are an
> embedded hardware company and use python (and more recently py lib) in
> our toolchain. Now imagine for the sake of discussion that we wanted
> to share some of that infrastructure with one of our B2B clients.
> Maybe we want to give them a drop of our testing infrastructure so
> they can use it to test products that contain our chips. I'm not sure
> if there is anything in the test infrastructure we would consider
> proprietary in that manner, but there definitely is in other areas of
> our infrastructure and py lib is becoming ever more popular
> internally. Under LGPL distributing this code in that manner would
> seem to be fine as we aren't distributing py lib or anything derived
> from it. 

Are you telling your clients to pre-install py lib? 

> What would be the implications of GPL licensing? 

You might need a separate agreement then.  

> and how do you see this scenario sitting with whatever
> alternate license you are considering?

All kinds of.  I am sure we can find some fitting scheme for
your case if GPL otherwise restricts your operations in
undesirable ways. 

thanks for your clear and thoughtful response, btw. 

best,
holger

> On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 5:36 PM, holger krekel <holger at merlinux.eu> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > some of you know that i am considering licensing and general
> > funding issues recently, see here for the current licensing status:
> >
> >    http://codespeak.net/py/trunk/faq.html#whygpl
> >
> > However, i am considering releasing the execnet code under the
> > GPL and the the rest under the LGPL.  This would mean that execnet
> > can be used in free software but not in proprietary software
> > without getting a different license.
> >
> > I think execnet presents a unique and valuable approach to glueing
> > Python interpreters and doing rapid deployment.  It can particularly
> > help with managing clouds of computers and I'd like to put more efforts
> > into improving and extending in this area.  And i'd like to tap into
> > getting dual-licensing revenue.  Which, on a side note, would flow back
> > to me and e.g. http://merlinux.eu/people.html so we all can continue to work
> > on great things.
> >
> > I am open to comments, arguments or bribes in the form
> > of contracts for improvements :)
> >
> > cheers,
> >
> > holger
> >
> > Maybe also of interest to you (currently unreachable for me, though)
> > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
> >
> > --
> > Metaprogramming, Python, Testing: http://tetamap.wordpress.com
> > Python, PyPy, pytest contracting: http://merlinux.eu
> > _______________________________________________
> > py-dev mailing list
> > py-dev at codespeak.net
> > http://codespeak.net/mailman/listinfo/py-dev
> >
> 

-- 
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Python, PyPy, pytest contracting: http://merlinux.eu