[Python-Dev] Making it possible to accept contributions without CLA (was: My thinking about the development process)

[Nick Coghlan]

On 9 Dec 2014 08:47, "Barry Warsaw" <barry at python.org> wrote:
>
> On Dec 09, 2014, at 09:31 AM, Ben Finney wrote:
>
> >Rather, I'm asking what, specifically, necessitates this situation.
> >
> >What would need to change, for the PSF to accept contributions to the
> >Python copyrighted works, without requiring the contributor to do
> >anything but license the work under Apache 2.0 license?
>
> My understanding is that the PSF needs the ability to relicense the
> contribution under the standard PSF license, and it is the contributor
> agreement that gives the PSF the legal right to do this.

This matches my understanding as well. The problem is that the PSF licence
itself isn't suitable as "licence in", and changing the "licence out" could
have a broad ripple effect on downstream consumers (especially since the
early history means "just change the outgoing license to the Apache
License" isn't an available option, at least as far as I am aware).

A more restricted CLA that limited the PSF's outgoing licence choices to
OSI approved open source licenses might address some of the concerns
without causing problems elsewhere, but the combination of being both
interested in core development and having a philosophical or personal
objection to signing the CLA seems to be genuinely rare.

Cheers,
Nick.

>
> Many organizations, both for- and non-profit have this legal requirement,
and
> there are many avenues for satisfying these needs, mostly based on
different
> legal and business interpretations.  In the scheme of such things, and
IMHO,
> the PSF CLA is quite reasonable and lightweight, both in what it requires
a
> contributor to provide, and in the value, rights, and guarantees it
extends to
> the contributor.
>
> Cheers,
> -Barry
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