Use generic license web page rather than requiring release-specific license pages

[ned-deily]

BPO	21572
Nosy	@birkenfeld, @pitrou, @larryhastings, @benjaminp, @ned-deily
PRs	bpo-41939: do not skip test_site.test_license_exists_at_url for pre-releases #22688

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2014-05-31.06:53:55.296>
created_at = <Date 2014-05-24.23:02:15.932>
labels = []
title = 'Use generic license web page rather than requiring release-specific license pages'
updated_at = <Date 2020-10-14.00:53:16.038>
user = 'https://github.com/ned-deily'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-10-14.00:53:16.038>
actor = 'ned.deily'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2014-05-31.06:53:55.296>
closer = 'ned.deily'
components = []
creation = <Date 2014-05-24.23:02:15.932>
creator = 'ned.deily'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 21572
keywords = []
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['219062', '219063', '219067', '219445', '219446']
nosy_count = 6.0
nosy_names = ['georg.brandl', 'pitrou', 'larry', 'benjamin.peterson', 'ned.deily', 'python-dev']
pr_nums = ['22688']
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue21572'
versions = ['Python 2.7', 'Python 3.4', 'Python 3.5']

[ned-deily]

Currently the "license" command for the interactive interpreter falls back to attempting to download a release-specific license URL if LICENSE.txt is not found locally. This adds the requirement to the release process to create a release-specific license file for each release. However, as was implemented in bpo-19043, we now use a generic license page in the documentation that no longer needs to be updated for each release (http://www.python.org/psf/license/ -> https://docs.python.org/2/license.html). Suggest changing Lib/site.py to use the generic URL as the fallback, thus eliminating the need to create a redundant downloads license page for each release.

For 2.7:
diff --git a/Lib/site.py b/Lib/site.py
--- a/Lib/site.py
+++ b/Lib/site.py
@@ -436,7 +436,7 @@
     for supporting Python development.  See www.python.org for more information.""")
     here = os.path.dirname(os.__file__)
     __builtin__.license = _Printer(
-        "license", "See http://www.python.org/%.3s/license.html" % sys.version,
+        "license", "See http://www.python.org/psf/license/",
         ["LICENSE.txt", "LICENSE"],
         [os.path.join(here, os.pardir), here, os.curdir])

For 3.x:
diff --git a/Lib/site.py b/Lib/site.py
--- a/Lib/site.py
+++ b/Lib/site.py
@@ -373,7 +373,7 @@
         dirs.extend([os.path.join(here, os.pardir), here, os.curdir])
     builtins.license = _sitebuiltins._Printer(
         "license",
-        "See http://www.python.org/download/releases/%.5s/license" % sys.version,
+        "See http://www.python.org/psf/license/",
         files, dirs)

For PEP-101:
diff --git a/pep-0101.txt b/pep-0101.txt
--- a/pep-0101.txt
+++ b/pep-0101.txt
@@ -487,8 +487,6 @@
___ Comment out the "This is a preview release" or the "This is a
production release" paragraph as appropriate

•  ___ Update the license in `download/releases/X.Y.Z/license`
  

•  Note, you don't have to copy any release files into this directory;
   they only live on dinsdale in the ftp directory.
  

[benjaminp]

Big +1

[pitrou]

Sounds like a pretty obvious improvement.

[python-dev]

New changeset 605349858156 by Ned Deily in branch '2.7':
Issue bpo-21572: Change license command to fallback to generic license URL.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/605349858156

New changeset 53fa2c9523d4 by Ned Deily in branch '3.4':
Issue bpo-21572: Change license command to fallback to generic license URL.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/53fa2c9523d4

New changeset 075c7affc05c by Ned Deily in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-21572: Change license command to fallback to generic license URL.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/075c7affc05c

[python-dev]

New changeset 151ac5aee7e7 by Ned Deily in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-21572: No longer need to create release-specific license page.
http://hg.python.org/peps/rev/151ac5aee7e7