[Distutils] Distutils at the PyCon 2004 sprints

[Mark W. Alexander]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2004 at 10:14:27PM -0500, Tim Peters wrote:
> > ...
> > Doesn't Python CVS access require a similar "contributor thingie",
> 
> In theory, but nobody has signed one yet (there's no form to sign yet, just
> a proposed form that doesn't actually make sense for various reasons --
> which is why it hasn't moved beyond "proposed" status).

Really..... I was asked to sign one and agree to be maintainer in order
to get commit access for the Solaris and HP-UX bdist tools. Because they
asked for "Employer" and because by employer is open source clueless,
the PSF board (and I) agreed to pull the code. 

> > for the same reasons as Zope?
> 
> That's a different question, and as a Zope employee I'm not allowed to
> speculate about Zope Corp policies <heh>.  The PSF wants a form for reasons
> that escape me now -- probably to ensure that there's no actionable question
> about the PSF's right to slap its own license on contributions, plus paying
> homage to various cover-your-ass legalistic superstitions "because everyone
> else does".

Think "SCO". If Linus had contributor agreements from those SCO/Caldera
employees Groklaw readers wouldn't have to be bit-dumpster diving to
find emails that show their employer approved their participation. It's
a fair thing to ask for reasonably significant contributions, I think.

> > ...
> > Fred and I are both zope.org CVS committers, and for the sprint I
> > sort of assumed Fred and/or Jim would have "contributor thingies" on
> > hand for people to sign if needed.  :)
> 
> You should really find out in advance whether contributors are willing to
> sign those.  For example, if I weren't already a Zope employee, I wouldn't
> sign it on the spot-- it's too complicated for me to sign without paying a
> lawyer to review it first (I don't even know what half of it really means).

The Zope one or the PSF one? The PSF one is basically "we agree that we
both have copyright and can do whatever we want with the code."
(Actually, I think there's 3 different options so you can choose what
suits your needs best.)

> BTW, if this code is intended to be released under a PSF license eventually,
> it probably won't help to have people sign something putting it under the
> ZPL first.  Vice versa if it's intended to be released under the ZPL.
> SpamBayes moved to SourceForge partly because they didn't ask us to sign
> pages of licensing agreements just to use a CVS repository.

As much as I hate to say this, it's only going to get worse. A year ago,
I never would have dreamed of asking for a copyright agreement if
someone wanted to contribute to one of my projects (that I can't publish
because my employer owns my every thought). Today, I probably would, if
only to have a physical (non-digital) audit trail of contributors. At
this point, it's like digging foxholes. We have to fortify our defenses
in preparation for more "IP" (should be "intellectual rights" -- it is
NOT _property!) attacks.

I haven't read the ZPL in a while and I have no idea what they have to
sign, however, if it's similar to the PSF agreement then once the
maintainer has "joint copyright", they can shift the excercise of their
rights from the PSF license to the ZPL to the GPL and back again as
needed. None of the transitions would change pre-existing licenses, and
at some transitions you could probably expect a fork since the other
"joint copyright holders" retain full and equal rights as well.

I don't mean to put a damper on things. It's just another challenge that
open source community has to overcome. 

IANALBILWIHT <I am not a lawyer but I'm learning what I have to>
mwa
-- 
Mark W. Alexander
slash at dotnetslash.net

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