<liclass="toctree-l2"><aclass="reference internal" href="MEP/MEP12.html">MEP12: Improve Gallery and Examples</a></li>
<liclass="toctree-l2"><aclass="reference internal" href="MEP/MEP13.html">MEP13: Use properties for Artists</a></li>
<liclass="toctree-l2"><aclass="reference internal" href="MEP/MEP14.html">MEP14: Text handling</a></li>
<liclass="toctree-l2"><aclass="reference internal" href="MEP/MEP15.html">MEP15: Fix axis autoscaling when limits are specified for one axis only</a></li>
<p>Famous projects released under a BSD-style license in the permissive
sense of the last paragraph are the BSD operating system, python and
TeX.</p>
<p>There are several reasons why early Matplotlib developers selected a
BSD compatible license. Matplotlib is a python extension, and we
choose a license that was based on the python license (BSD
compatible). Also, we wanted to attract as many users and developers
as possible, and many software companies will not use GPL code in
software they plan to distribute, even those that are highly committed
to open source development, such as <aclass="reference external" href="https://www.enthought.com">enthought</a>, out of legitimate concern that use of the
GPL will "infect" their code base by its viral nature. In effect, they
want to retain the right to release some proprietary code. Companies
and institutions who use Matplotlib often make significant
contributions, because they have the resources to get a job done, even
a boring one. Two of the Matplotlib backends (FLTK and WX) were
contributed by private companies. The final reason behind the
licensing choice is compatibility with the other python extensions for
scientific computing: ipython, numpy, scipy, the enthought tool suite
and python itself are all distributed under BSD compatible licenses.</p>