Licence Request

[tim-hitchins-ekkosense]

Hi,

We'd really like to use another project which depends on your library, but your library currently has no licence. This means we can't use either.

Given most of the packages on npm are MIT or Apache 2.0, we imagine you would choose one of these, but please could you clarify your position. If it would be helpful to you, we would be happy to open a pull request to add your choice of licence to the package for you.

Thanks,
Tim

[OliverFendt]

Hi
thank you for doing this project, it is very good.
However a I have a question about the license. There is the PSF (Python Software Foundation) License Agreement assigned to it. But the PSF License Agreement is bound to software developed by the PSF, because in the agreement the Licensor is the PSF and not you. But since the software is not developed by the PSF this this is not correct. Further the PSF License Agreement says that the PSF shall not be liable for damages - but I think you shall not be liable for damages. Last but not least subject of the PSF License Agreement is Python 2.7.2 and not your software.
It would be very nice if you clarify these issues or probably the better way - re-license it under the MIT license. You will find the text of the license below. I can also make a pull request if you like.
Thank you very much.

MIT License
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

[tbwiss]

Hi

Thanks @qiao for this great library! We have a similar issue as @tim-hitchins-ekkosense, we would like to make use of this library through another library. When you made a decision on which license you want to use, could you also update/include it on https://www.npmjs.com/package/heap? Currently it states license none.

Thank you very much!

[heathermeeker]

I wanted to echo the concerns of Tim and Oliver above. PSF is not quite right here, could you apply MIT instead? One of my clients likes this library a lot and wants to use it, but the license is causing friction. Thanks for providing a great software library!

[tim-hitchins-ekkosense]

@heathermeeker I'll note it's not even using the PSF. It's using the PSF but copied from Python 2.7.2:

This LICENSE AGREEMENT is between the Python Software Foundation (“PSF”), and the Individual or Organization (“Licensee”) accessing and otherwise using Python 2.7.2 software in source or binary form and its associated documentation.

That obviously makes no sense for this library, neither being written by the PSF or the software being Python 2.7.2. Clearly the user took the licence from the licence which applied to heapq at the time.

I think that means this software is unlicensed, and remains completely proprietary. That makes the 800k downloads a week a copyright + licence violation... 😢

[qiao]

Thanks for flagging. I've fixed the license in 21701c0 and published the new version to npm.

[tim-hitchins-ekkosense]

@qiao Thank you so much! ❤️

[heathermeeker]

Thank you so much!