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12.6 History of the software
Python was created in the early 1990s by Guido van Rossum
at Stichting
Mathematisch Centrum (CWI
) in the Netherlands
as a successor of a language called ABC. Guido remains Python's
principal author, although it includes many contributions from others.
In 1995, Guido continued his work on Python at the Corporation for
National Research Initiatives (CNRI
)
in Reston, Virginia where he released several versions of the
software.
In May 2000, Guido and the Python core development team moved to
BeOpen.com to form the BeOpen PythonLabs team. In October of the same
year, the PythonLabs team moved to Zope Corporation (then Digital
Creations). In 2001, the Python
Software Foundation (PSF
) was
formed, a non-profit organization created specifically to own
Python-related Intellectual Property. Zope Corporation is a
sponsoring member of the PSF.
The license agreement for the current version of Python is given in
the next section, along with the licenses used by previous versions.
The table below summarizes the release history:
| Release | Derived from | Year | Owner | GPL compatible?
| | ------- | ------- | ------- | ------- | -------
| | 0.9.0 thru 1.2 | n/a | 1991-1995 | CWI | yes
| | 1.3 thru 1.5.2 | 1.2 | 1995-1999 | CNRI | yes
| | 1.6 | 1.5.2 | 2000 | CNRI | no
| | 2.0 | 1.6 | 2000 | BeOpen.com | no
| | 1.6.1 | 1.6 | 2001 | CNRI | no
| | 2.1 | 2.0+1.6.1 | 2001 | PSF | no
| | 2.0.1 | 2.0+1.6.1 | 2001 | PSF | yes
| | 2.1.1 | 2.1+2.0.1 | 2001 | PSF | yes
| | 2.2 | 2.1.1 | 2001 | PSF | yes
| | 2.1.2 | 2.1.1 | 2002 | PSF | yes
| | 2.1.3 | 2.1.2 | 2002 | PSF | yes
| | 2.2.1 | 2.2 | 2002 | PSF | yes
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Note: GPL-compatible means that it is possible to combine Python with other software that is released under the GNU General Public License.
Thanks to the many outside volunteers who have worked under Guido's
direction to make these releases possible.
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