[Python-legal-sig] Is CLA required to send and accept edits for Python documentation?

[Jesse Noller]

On Aug 14, 2013, at 7:53 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:

> Jesse Noller <jnoller at gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> On May 1, 2013, at 8:44 AM, anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Wikipedia doesn't require to sign up a CLA to edit pages. Is CLA
>>> required to send and accept edits for Python documentation? Why?
>> 
>> We are not Wikipedia.
> 
> True, but both Wikimedia Foundation and Python Software Foundation
> accept contributions from third parties, under a free-software license,
> for redistribution to others. It seems a salient comparison for this
> discussion.
> 
> So what is the difference that means Wikimedia Foundation do not ask for
> additional agreement documents, while PSF do ask for additional
> agreement documents from the contributor?

Python is distributed to end users in packaged form, on operating systems and elsewhere. Wikipedia is distributed online and is done via mass collaboration.

It would be next to impossible to prove legal provenance of the changes on Wikipedia. This means distributing the text in any commercial form is legally questionable.

For python: we have to (as the PSF) be able to prove that the people committing the code have rights to that code. For example, if I, working for Foo, submit code to core, I must have a CLA in place from that company stating from the company and myself that I have the legal rights to submit that code and it is OK for the PSF to redistribute that code.


> 
>> […] larger changes (just like code patches) require the ability for
>> redistribution and licensing downstream to other vendors such as
>> ActiveState, RedHat and others.
> 
> The Apache License – the free-software license which the PSF ask for on
> contributions to the Python code base – allows every recipient,
> including the PSF, to do this already.
> 
> If that permission is already in the license on the contribution, why
> does the PSF require it again in a special agreement document?

The special agreement document is the contributor agreement which companies, employees, and individuals sign to agree to license the changes under the Apache 2 license.

That agreement must be in place to prove provenance of code and associated copyright assignments/etc in the case of a legal audit from companies which distribute the python code, associated files, etc.

This is especially true for OS vendors - such as RedHat, Apple and others who will perform legal audits of code to ensure that all contributions are properly licensed and the PSF can properly distribute those changes.


> 
> On the other hand, if the PSF requires additional powers not already
> granted (to all recipients) in the license, what are those additional
> powers and why does the PSF need them for a contribution?
> 

It's already granted in the license: but people have to agree to license their changes under that apache 2 license and that the PSF can lawfully redistribute the changes.

For an example: look back at Oracle vs Google and the legal battle over things as silly as comments which were copy pasted from elsewhere. Something that stupidly simple can be cause to question the provenance of the code with the distribution.

We have already had to fix copyright headers and provide CLA documents to companies finding issues or questioning provenance

> -- 
> \      “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking |
>  `\                               they don't have any.” —Alice Walker |
> _o__)                                                                  |
> Ben Finney
> 
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