The Python License is a deprecated

permissive {{about, , the 1970 British film, Permissive (film), the grammatical mode, Permissive mood, the flavor of software license, permissive free software licence A permissive cell or host is one that allows a virus to circumvent its defenses and replica ...

computer

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source ...

created by the

Corporation for National Research Initiatives The Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), based in Reston, Virginia, is a non-profit organization founded in 1986 by Robert E. Kahn as an "activities center around strategic development of network-based information technologies", in ...

(CNRI). It was used for versions 1.6 and 2.0 of the

Python programming language Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is dynamically-typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming p ...

, both released in the year 2000. The Python License is similar to the

BSD License BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD lice ...

and, while it is a

free software license A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) ...

, its wording in some versions meant that it was incompatible with the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

(GPL) used by a great deal of free software including the Linux kernel. For this reason CNRI retired the license in 2001, and the license of current releases is the

Python Software Foundation License The Python Software Foundation License (PSFL) is a BSD-style, permissive software license which is compatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL). Its primary use is for distribution of the Python project software and its documentation ...

Origin

Python was created by

Guido van Rossum Guido van Rossum (; born 31 January 1956) is a Dutch programmer best known as the creator of the Python programming language, for which he was the "benevolent dictator for life" (BDFL) until he stepped down from the position on 12 July 2018 ...

and the initial copyright was held by his employer, the

Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica The (abbr. CWI; English: "National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science") is a research centre in the field of mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Co ...

(CWI). During this time Python was distributed under a GPL-compatible variant of the Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer license. CNRI obtained ownership of Python when Van Rossum became employed there, and after some years they drafted a new license for the language.

Retirement

The Python License includes a clause stating that the license is governed by the State of Virginia, United States. The

; Python 1.6.1 differs from Python 1.6 only in some minor bug fixes and new GPL-compatible licensing terms.

References

{{FOSS Python (programming language) Free and open-source software licenses Permissive software licenses