[Python-Dev] DRAFT: python-dev Summary for 2006-01-01 through 2006-01-15 (original) (raw)

Stephen J. Turnbull stephen at xemacs.org
Mon Jan 30 09:51:11 CET 2006

"Tim" == Tim Peters <tim.peters at gmail.com> writes:

Tim> [Martin v. Löwis]

>> Also, I firmly believe that the FSF would *not* sue the PSF,
>> but instead first ask that the status is corrected.

They would ask first. That's what they did in the case of Aladdin Ghostscript's use of readline.

Tim> I'd say that's almost certain.  Like any organization with
Tim> something fuzzy to protect, the FSF has far more to lose than
Tim> to gain by daring a court to rule on their beliefs.  Of
Tim> course the PSF is in a similar boat: both parties would view
Tim> a lawsuit as a rock-bottom last resort.

Aladdin took a position similar to Martin's, and only yanked the offending Makefile stanza when the FSF called them and said "we're ready to go to court; are you?"

Tim> I wouldn't yank it just to avoid a theoretical possibility
Tim> that the FSF might complain someday.

It's not theoretical; it's almost identical to the Aladdin case. Legally the PSF is, if anything, in a weaker position than Aladdin (which did not distribute the module that interfaced to libreadline in Ghostscript, but merely a makefile stanza that used it if it were found).

-- School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.

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