[Distutils] Distutils at the PyCon 2004 sprints

[Tim Peters]

[Tim, on PSF contributor agreements]
>> 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).

[Mark W. Alexander]
> Really..... I was asked to sign one

In
    http://www.python.org/sf/531901

Marc-Andre said

    The PSF will still require you to sign a contributor agreement
    for these addition, though, after these have been through the legal
    review phase.

You didn't sign, and the forms still aren't through legal review.

> and agree to be maintainer

That's a different issue -- that was a PEP 2 requirement.

> in order to get commit access for the Solaris and HP-UX bdist tools.

Some form was needed just so that Marc-Andre could check in your stuff on
your behalf.  The issue was that the IP rights in your patch appeared to
belong to your employer, and it was a substantial piece of work so it wasn't
reasonable to overlook that.  It doesn't really matter for short patches (an
employer could try to sue over one of those, but wouldn't prevail).  Most
contributions to Python aren't entangled at all.

> Because they asked for "Employer" and because by employer is open
> source clueless, the PSF board (and I) agreed to pull the code.

I'm on the PSF board, so I even know who your employer was <wink>.

> ...
> 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.

This isn't the place for an SCO debate, but no amount of paper can prevent a
lawsuit.  It can discourage one, but the PSF has other things in its favor
discouraging lawsuits (see below).

> It's a fair thing to ask for reasonably significant contributions, I
> think.

Yes, and the PSF is still trying to get a reasonable contributor form in
place.  The one copied from Zope Corp doesn't make sense for the PSF (as
mentioned last time); for example, because Python's CVS is controlled by
SourceForge (while Zope's is controlled by Zope), the words saying that the
PSF may disable your account are simply absurd (the PSF cannot disable your
SourceForge account); the bit about you agreeing that using your account
password constitutes acceptance of the agreement is even sillier, because
the PSF has no way of knowing whether you use your password (SourceForge
might be able to tell -- we can't).  An agreement that spouts nonsense
stands poor chance of being upheld.

> ...
> 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.)

The Zope one.  The proposed PSF one was essentially copied from Zope's.
There are at present no PSF forms available, just proposed forms that
haven't passed legal review.  Our attorney du jour happens to hate them, so
to make progress we'll have to get a different attorney or different forms.

...

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

Or ignore <0.5 wink>.  There's potentially money in going after Linux.
Nobody is going to make a dime going after the PSF, and because the PSF is a
public charity (under US tax law), its primary assets can only end up in the
hands of government agencies or other public charities.  When the March of
Dimes starts suing Open Source public charities, or SCO is recognized by the
IRS as a government agency, then I'll start to worry about the PSF -- before
then, the worst they can do is drive the PSF bankrupt.  We want to
discourage that too, but can't really prevent it if someone with a few spare
million lawyer dollars is determined to make it happen.