[License-review] Submission: CNRI-Python-GPL-Compatible

[Richard Fontana]

"

On Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 12:39 PM Josh Berkus <josh at berkus.org> wrote:
>
> On 3/20/26 9:13 AM, Max Mehl wrote:
> > Following a discussion on license-discuss@ <https://
> > lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-
> > discuss_lists.opensource.org/2026-March/022526.html> and a quick
> > coordination with Deb from the Python Software Foundation (in Cc), I
> > would like to propose that CNRI-Python-GPL-Compatible be considered an
> > officially approved (legacy) Open Source license. In the same step, I
> > propose to mark CNRI-Python as either Superseded or Voluntarily Retired.
>
> The CNRI is written as a clickwrap agreement, rather than as a license.
> Does this make it problematic to approve?

The relevant phrasing is:

BY CLICKING ON "ACCEPT" WHERE INDICATED BELOW, OR BY COPYING,
INSTALLING OR OTHERWISE USING PYTHON 1.6.1 SOFTWARE, YOU ARE DEEMED TO
HAVE AGREED TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS LICENSE AGREEMENT.

Some other OSI-approved licenses have similar sorts of "usewrap"
language. This arguably includes the GPL, though the provision I'm
thinking of (GPLv2 section 5) is careful to refer only to "modifying
or distributing", and it seems to have gotten reinterpreted by people
in the GPL community.

A "clickwrap" requirement would violate the OSD, and this was the
point of the only amendment to the OSD ever made, OSD 10 ("No
provision of the license may be predicated on any individual
technology or style of interface").

Richard