Re: replacing python.el

[Barry Warsaw <barry@python.org>]

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On Feb 1, 2009, at 2:00 AM, Glenn Morris wrote:

>> Since Andreas Röhler is unwilling to sign legal papers for his
>> code in python.el, we cannot use it in Emacs.
>>
>> Would anyone like to implement for python-mode.el whatever
>> nice features python.el may have?  Barry, could you make a TODO list?
>
> You've got this backwards.
>
> Emacs includes python.el, written by Dave Love, about which there is
> no legal problem.
>
> python-mode.el is the alternative, which has several contributors
> including Andreas R. This has never been included in Emacs.
>
> There is no legal problem affecting python.el distributed with GNU
> Emacs.

As Andreas pointed out, we have not yet merged his changes into python- 
mode.el.

I had hoped that it would be possible to merge python-mode.el and  
python.el and reduce the confusion and inconvenience of Python X/Emacs  
users.  Andreas's opinion is that that is technically impossible and I  
believe it is Dave's opinion that it will be practically impossible  
from a legal perspective.  If that's the case, then so be it; we will  
continue to develop and maintain python-mode.el as an alternative and  
XEmacs will likely include our version in its distribution.  Emacs  
users will have to find it if they are looking for an alternative, but  
once they do, it should work just fine for them.

python-mode.el is now GPLv3.

I don't know what more we can do and it seems like python-mode.el will  
never be included in Emacs.  Oh well.  Under those circumstances, I  
see no reason not to allow Andreas to merge his changes into python- 
mode.el even without his copyright assignments.

If I'm wrong in any of the above, please correct me.

Barry

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