On Tue, 17 Sep 2013 09:47:48 -0700
Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> wrote:
>
> IIRC this table was added when a few core Python developers including
> myself left CNRI in 2000. We had a bit of an argument about the license
> (not too much though -- in the end things came out alright). Some lawyer at
> CNRI thought it was a good idea to record a release history like this with
> the license, as a defense against whatever claims of ownership to the code
> someone else might suddenly come up with. Since all I wanted was to get out
> of there while causing them minimal upset, I told them I'd comply. But
> that's over 13 years ago now, and I'm not sure if it ever made sense (the
> internet is a different place than CNRI's lawyers envisioned). Only the top
> 10 of so lines of the table are in the least interesting (note that it
> describes a graph). I propose that we truncate the table and add a note
> saying that all following releases are owned by the PSF, GPL-compatible,
> and derived from previous PSF-owned and GPL-compatible releases. That
> should do until the PSF goes out of business (which I hope will never
> happen -- this is one reason why I wish the conferences were run by a
> separate entity, to avoid a conference bankruptcy from risking Python's
> continued open-source status).

The PSF isn't technically the copyright holder, so would that pose a
significant threat?

(at worse the PSF could relicense Python based on the copyright
agreements, but Python would still be distributable under the original
license)