I can't tell you as a lawyer, but I can tell you that regarding code for non-commercial use, the only supportable case is requiring fair-credit assignment. If reading the original license (which you are obligated to do if you re-use and re-distribute the code), it stipulates that you must re-share accordingly, then you should, otherwise there's very little case that could be brought about if the code was put into a published, "open-source" project, whatever the license.
mark On Sat, Jun 8, 2013 at 2:31 PM, Malte Forkel <malte.for...@berlin.de> wrote: > Hello, > > I have written a small utility to locate errors in regular expressions > that I want to upload to PyPI. Before I do that, I would like to learn > a litte more about the legal aspects of open-source software. What would > be a good introductory reading? > > Plus, I have one very specific question: In my package, I use modified > code from sre_parse.py, which is part of the Python release. That file > has the following header: > > # > # Secret Labs' Regular Expression Engine > # > # convert re-style regular expression to sre pattern > # > # Copyright (c) 1998-2001 by Secret Labs AB. All rights reserved. > # > # See the sre.py file for information on usage and redistribution. > # > > The referenced information is missing in the version of sre.py that > comes with current versions of Python, but I found it in the archive > http://effbot.org/media/downloads/sre-2.2.1.zip. It reads: > > # > # Secret Labs' Regular Expression Engine > # > # re-compatible interface for the sre matching engine > # > # Copyright (c) 1998-2001 by Secret Labs AB. All rights reserved. > # > # This version of the SRE library can be redistributed under CNRI's > # Python 1.6 license. For any other use, please contact Secret Labs > # AB (i...@pythonware.com). > # > # Portions of this engine have been developed in cooperation with > # CNRI. Hewlett-Packard provided funding for 1.6 integration and > # other compatibility work. > # > > Now, how am I supposed to deal with that? Ask Secret Labs for some kind > of permission? Leave it as it is and add my own copyright line? > > Malte > > -- > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list -- MarkJ Tacoma, Washington -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
