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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/15/2013 12:15 AM, Ben Finney
wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:7wtxn8gt85.fsf@benfinney.id.au" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Steven D'Aprano <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:steve@pearwood.info"><steve@pearwood.info></a> writes:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">On 13/04/13 20:30, Ben Finney wrote:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">"Stephen J. Turnbull" <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:stephen@xemacs.org"><stephen@xemacs.org></a> writes:
</pre>
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<pre wrap="">A failure to sign the CLA is already a decision not to contribute
to the distribution
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<pre wrap="">
As someone who cannot in good faith sign the CLA, that
characterisation is far from accurate: I would very much like to
contribute to the Python distribution, and so have not decided as
you describe.
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<pre wrap="">
Could you explain, briefly, why you cannot sign the CLA?
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<pre wrap="">
Because software freedom in a work is undermined when any recipient is
granted special legal privilege in the work.
As it currently stands, the Contributor Agreement grants special legal
privilege in the work (the power to unilaterally re-license the work) to
the PSF.
By “special privilege”, I mean that this power is granted specially to
some but denied to all other recipients of the work. Hence to sign the
Contributor Agreement as it currently stands is to undermine software
freedom in the resulting work.
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Easily curable by granting that right to all recipients of the
contributions you make to PSF, no? Of course, the contributor's
agreement has no particular need to include such a clause, but you
can include it in a separately published version of the
contributions, to keep freedom free...<br>
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