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

[Jesse Noller]

See also the complete history:

http://www.python.org/download/releases/2.5/license/

License in and license out would require lots of legal time and money to approach beOpen/cnri and others to flatten the stack

On Aug 14, 2013, at 9:15 PM, Jesse Noller <jnoller at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Aug 14, 2013, at 9:08 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> 
>> Jesse Noller <jnoller at gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>>> On Aug 14, 2013, at 7:53 PM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> 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.
>> 
>> Both of those are true for both Python and Wikipedia:
>> 
>> * Python is distributed online via mass collaboration, in the VCS
>> repository.
>> 
>> What salient legal difference is there from Wikipedia's mass
>> collaboration and online distribution?
>> 
>> * Wikipedia is distributed to end users in packaged form (for one
>> example of many, the WikiReader device). Indeed, this is a primary
>> purpose of Wikipedia, to produce an encyclopedia useful for packaging
>> and distribution under free-software terms to those without reliable
>> internet access.
>> 
>> What salient difference is there from Python's distribution to end
>> users in packaged form?
> 
> Allowance for redistribution, even under non free licenses. Additionally, you have to account for the Python license itself which is actually a "stack" stemming from the old beOpen days, python labs etc.
> 
> All if this means we also need to worry about copyright assignment for legal redistribution by the PSF, OS vendors, non free implementations, etc.
> 
>> 
>> I'm not asking for you to defend what Wikimedia Foundation have decided.
>> 
>> But I am asking for why the PSF requires additional agreement documents,
>> when other free-software organisations, performing what seem to be
>> legally-equivalent collaborations and redistributions, do not require
>> these additional agreements.
>> 
>> If there's a salient difference, I have yet to have it presented. If
>> there's not a salient difference, I don't see why the CLA is required.
>> 
>>> 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.
>> 
>> Yet it is explicitly permitted by the license. The license was carefully
>> chosen to encourage commercial redistribution of Wikipedia, and people
>> do it.
>> 
>>> For python: we have to (as the PSF) be able to prove that the people
>>> committing the code have rights to that code.
>> 
>> Okay. That's not a reason to ask for a licensing agreement from the
>> contributor, though. It's reason to ask for an affirmation of the
>> provenance of the contribution. No additional powers required.
>> 
>>> 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.
>> 
>> Why is this a special agreement with the PSF, though? The PSF already
>> has full permission to do everything the Apache License allows.
>> 
>>>> 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.
>> 
>> I would be happy to sign such a document, asserting the work is licensed
>> to all recipients under the Apache License version 2. It says nothing
>> about any special arrangement with PSF.
>> 
>> -- 
>> \          “Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a |
>> `\     world made for man — who has no gills.” —Ambrose Bierce, _The |
>> _o__)                                        Devil's Dictionary_, 1906 |
>> Ben Finney
>> 
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