March 5, 2026
Popcorn, pitchforks, and licenses
No right to relicense this project
Original author calls foul; commenters split between 'copycat' and 'fresh start' vibes
TLDR: Mark Pilgrim says chardet’s 7.0.0 “relicense” violates the LGPL and wants the old license back. The comments ignite over whether a claimed “complete rewrite” and API compatibility make it legal, citing Google v. Oracle, clean-room myths, and AI-assisted clones—highlighting why open-source licenses can make or break projects.
Mark Pilgrim — the “Dive Into Python” guy — just stormed back into the chat to say the chardet team had no right to change the license in version 7.0.0. He says the code was under LGPL (Lesser General Public License), a “share‑alike” license that demands modified versions stay under the same terms. The claim of a “complete rewrite”? He calls it irrelevant because the maintainers had seen the old code, so this wasn’t a “clean room” redo. Cue popcorn.
Commenters split fast. One camp says “slow down,” arguing it depends on what ‘rewritten’ actually means. Another camp points to the Google vs Oracle saga: if the guts are different, an API-compatible remake can be legit. Then charcircuit drops a legal mic: clean rooms (writing code without seeing the original) aren’t even required to avoid infringement. The thread turns into “license bros vs code cowboys,” with jokes like “LGPL = Let’s Get People Litigious” and folks yelling “lawyer up, ship later.”
The drama spills beyond chardet. geenat flags FastAPI/Starlette’s license rollercoaster with receipts: link. Meanwhile, Roritharr brings an AI twist: someone had Claude Code reverse engineer apps and the frontend to build an API‑compatible backend. Now people are asking if robots can copy you while lawyers argue over the rules. Verdict: tension hot, memes hotter, maintainers sweating.
Key Points
- •Mark Pilgrim identifies himself as the original author of the chardet project.
- •He says chardet maintainers claimed in release 7.0.0 that they could relicense the project.
- •Pilgrim asserts such relicensing violates the LGPL and that modifications must remain under the same license.
- •He argues the maintainers’ claim of a “complete rewrite” is irrelevant due to prior exposure to the original code, not a clean-room implementation.
- •He insists the project should be reverted to its original LGPL license and says a code generator does not grant relicensing rights.