[Distutils] Distutils at the PyCon 2004 sprints

[Mark W. Alexander]

On Thu, Mar 18, 2004 at 01:21:49AM -0500, Tim Peters wrote:
> 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>.

if was==still_is: # will be true until new_offer >= exisiting_recompense
   I'm sure I have your sympathies ;)

FWIW, I have since managed to get Mark Lutz in for on-site training and
Python is now the "official" language of our (worldwide!) division
(although I still have to thrash some perl-mongers soundly to make them
understand that other people have to be able to follow and maintain
their code). Progress is being made. It's just soooo daaaaarrrrn
sssllooooooowwwww...... 

> 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).

Discouragement is good.

> > 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.

I understand and completely support the PSF's stance. The only
suggestion I have would be to place a more prominent notice about
"significant contributions" requiring an agreement. I only found out
about it after the fact, and was seriously p.o.'ed _at_myself_ for
placing the PSF in that position.

> > 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.

This is very informative! Large open source projects have a great case
for becoming public charities based on the educational aspect alone.
(This is how our local LUG is pursuing 501(3c) status). For Big
Corporation X to somehow "attack" a public charity would be very bad PR.

Pass my best wishes and thanks again on to the board.

mwa
-- 
Mark W. Alexander
slash at dotnetslash.net

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