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CNCF license allowlist should replace Python-2.0 with either PSF-2.0 or Python-2.0.1 #531

Closed richardfontana closed 5 months ago

richardfontana commented 1 year ago

The SPDX license list currently lists a few Python-related licenses, historically related to the Python (CPython) project, certain past employers of Guido van Rossum, and the Python Software Foundation and Python community:

We can ignore those legacy CNRI licenses for purposes of this issue.

PSF-2.0 has been used by a number of non-PSF Python projects (following the time-worn if questionable FOSS tradition of using the same license as the language implementation), despite the fact that it is not really suitable for use by non-PSF licensors. So for example some PyPI packages use this license.

Python-2.0.1 would probably only be appropriate to add if there's a CNCF project that is for some reason shipping a whole CPython release, unless there's a case where some project is copying code from CPython and it is not practical to tell whether that code is covered solely by PSF-2.0 or additionally one or more of the legacy licenses in the CPython stack.

For the gory details on Python-2.0.1, see https://github.com/spdx/license-list-XML/issues/1200.

There is probably no reason why any CNCF project would be using Python-2.0, other than in an erroneous application of SPDX identifiers.

krook commented 5 months ago

This was reviewed by the Legal Committee and approved by the Governing Board. The approved license list has been updated to include PSF-2.0 and Python-2.0.1.