I really don't understand what all the fuzz is about. We have a two step process:
- Step 1
What the PSF initially needs is an acknowledgement of the contributor (committer or not) that he or she is willing to accept and enter into the agreement.
This can be done by checking a checkbox on the bug tracker, a comment on the tracker, an inline note in the patch, an emailed form, via IRC, etc.
The only important aspect in this step is to make the contributor aware of the requirement and get his/her agreement to follow up on it.
- Step 2
The paperwork can then be done as second step - in whatever way is legally needed.
The only important aspect with this second step is that the PSF does get to know about the new contribution. Since Pat is not following the checkins list, an email to her would be nice.
- Possible issues and solutions
If anything, I believe it's the legal form we require that's giving people second thoughts, not finding a fax machine or post box :-)
http://www.python.org/psf/contrib/
Or perhaps, they are not aware of the requirement at all, since the tracker doesn't mention it on the submission page:
http://bugs.python.org/issue?@template=item
A simple note like this on the tracker would go a long way:
""" Please be aware that we can only accept patches for Python if you are willing to sign a contributor agreement with the PSF (linked to the contrib forms).
The agreement is necessary in order for the PSF to be able to legally distribute your contribution together with the Python distribution. If you have questions, please write to contributor-agreement@python.org. """
contributor-agreement@python.org could be aliased to psf@python.org, pat@python.org, or even better, a PSF committee taking care of this business.
For new core committers, I believe that step 1 and 2 ought to really already have happened long before they even become core committers. After all, submitting code is one of the more important requirements we have for them, right ?
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