[4th Draft] Open Letter to CNRI: Request for clarification
Peter Schneider-Kamp
--- begin open letter -------------------------------------------------
To: Dr. Robert E. Kahn <rk...@cnri.reston.va.us>,
(president of The Corporation for National Research Initiatives)
Dear Mr. Kahn,
a lot of people in the Python community around the newsgroup
comp.lang.python are deeply concerned about the latest license
issues that have arisen around the new 1.6/2.0 releases.
The following attached signatures represent people from the Python
community who would like some clarification regarding the future of the
Python language. As of now, there has been no official statement from
your institution regarding the new Python license. We are especially
interested in the underlying intention of this change. So we request
a plain-English, non-legalese statement regarding the purpose of that
change and the ways in which it affects Python's use.
Kind regards,
Peter Schneider-Kamp
--- end open letter ----------------------------------------------------
--- begin signature list -----------------------------------------------
Martijn Faassen
Jay Graves
Konrad Hinsen (Centre de Biophysique Moleculaire (CNRS))
Gareth McCaughan
David Mertz (author of a Python column for IBM developerworks)
Moshe Zadka (mathematician, Python developer)
--- end signature list -------------------------------------------------
Please add/change/remove your signatures.
Feedback as always strongly appreciated.
or-should-I-send-the-1st-draft-<wink>-ly y'rs
Peter
--
Peter Schneider-Kamp ++47-7388-7331
Herman Krags veg 51-11 mailto:pe...@schneider-kamp.de
N-7050 Trondheim http://schneider-kamp.de
Will Ware
suggestions. The later drafts are big improvements, primarily in toning
down the emotional language of the first draft. Here are some thoughts
on this matter. For reference, CNRI's home page is
http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/
1. CNRI legally owns Python, up to version 1.6. You and I don't have
any legal rights of any kind in this matter. The user community does
not collectively have any legal rights in this matter. We are extremely
dependent upon CNRI's good will.
2. CNRI does not need the existing Python user community. But it
sounds like they may have future plans for Python. We don't know what
those plans are, but CNRI would probably benefit from a cooperative
friendly rapport with the user community, given the amount of
expertise floating around out here. CNRI may not yet be aware of the
size and quality of the user community, so they may be inclined to
dismiss the benefits of cooperation.
3. No matter what, we should not alienate or bash CNRI. It's easy to
imagine that every large organization with lawyers is another
Microsoft, but we only hurt ourselves by establishing an atmosphere of
mistrust or suspicion.
4. CNRI may wish to keep secrets, for business reasons or any other
reason, and they are under no obligation to disclose those reasons to
the user community. This is standard business practice throughout the
world. There is nothing to be gained by complaining to them about it.
> We are especially interested in the underlying intention of this
> change. So we request a plain-English, non-legalese statement
> regarding the purpose of that change and the ways in which it
> affects Python's use.
I see what you're looking for here, and agree that if CNRI discloses
(at least partially) their thoughts and plans for Python, it would be
a huge step to establishing a cooperative rapport with the community.
I'm concerned about the phrase "underlying intention", which hints
that you think CNRI is currently being sneaky and hiding something
from the user community. You might want to use a phrase like "overall
intent", or simply "intent".
If CNRI is not yet aware of the benefits of cooperating with the user
community, then the best thing to accomplish with this sort of letter
is to initiate that cooperation yourself.
Remember, you are asking CNRI to do things that they have no legal
obligation or business reason to do. You want to be as polite about
all this as possible. They don't owe you or me or the user community
anything.
--
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Resistance is futile. Capacitance is efficacious.
Will Ware email: wware @ world.std.com
Peter Schneider-Kamp
Thanks for the suggestions. I guess you'll like the 6th draft.
Will Ware wrote:
>
> 1. CNRI legally owns Python, up to version 1.6. You and I don't have
> any legal rights of any kind in this matter. The user community does
> not collectively have any legal rights in this matter. We are extremely
> dependent upon CNRI's good will.
I doubt that. As far as I understood the matter Python 1.5.2
was released under the old CWI license. Am I missing something?
Thomas Wouters
> Will Ware wrote:
> >
> > 1. CNRI legally owns Python, up to version 1.6. You and I don't have
> > any legal rights of any kind in this matter. The user community does
> > not collectively have any legal rights in this matter. We are extremely
> > dependent upon CNRI's good will.
> I doubt that. As far as I understood the matter Python 1.5.2
> was released under the old CWI license. Am I missing something?
Probably, but who isn't ! 'Ownership' of Python and the Licence that Python
is distributed under, however, are two entirely different things. Indeed,
'ownership' of what ? Of the source code ? Of the 'python' name ? Of the
Python language ? As far as I can tell, we're all talking about ownership of
the source, and that hasn't much to do with who wrote the licence that is
currently in use. Note that the 1.5.2 licence does mention CNRI, so it's not
like they 'forgot' to change the licence when Guido fled Amsterdam.
Only-to-return-a-world-leader-twenty-years-later-ly y'rs,
PS: Even if CNRI does 'own' Python, which is likely, I don't think the
'until version 1.6' holds up! What if CNRI decides to make a 1.7 ? <wink>
--
Thomas Wouters <tho...@xs4all.net>
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