Public Domain Python

[Tim Peters]

[Grant Griffin]
> ...
> Wouldn't it be nice if the original CWI license had some kind of
> copyleft-style clause that applied *only* to its next official caretaker
> (that being CNRI), but left the _rest_ of us free to do with Python
> whatever we wanted?  Then, the same sort of thing would now apply to
> BeOpen.

I don't know how to do that short of the GPL route, though.  Defining
"official caretaker" is the problem.  There's nothing "official" about
BeOpen.com at this point wrt Python -- legally speaking, they're just one of
a large crowd of copyright holders, so can't be singled out effectively.  I
suppose the license *could* mention "Guido van Rossum's employer du jour",
but that may be too novel for the courts to endure <wink>.  It would also
re-raise paranoia about "what if Guido got hit by a bus?".

> That's all a fantasy at this point, but it sounds like the separate
> legal agreements Tim and co. are making with BeOpen are intended to have
> this same sort of effect.

They constrain BeOpen.com specifically, along with its "heirs, successors
and assignees", whatever that gibberish means <wink>.  In a sense, they also
constrain us.  But if BeOpen.com should not happen to be Python's last
official caretaker, the papers won't constrain the next one.  However, we
cleverly(?) worked all this stuff into our individual employment agreements,
and, should it become necessary, will take those same agreements (with minor
edits) with us to potential future employers.  Without holding the copyright
himself, I think that's the best Guido can do now (and I personally paid a
lot of money to have a good lawyer tell me that, so have solid financial
reason to believe it <wink>).

Infinitely preferable would be for CNRI to assign copyright to an
independent body representing the Python community "for real" (CNRI's only
contact with the community is via the Python Consortium, whose few active
members are hardly *representative* of our community), and for Guido's
current & future employers to agree to assign whatever Python copyrights
they may be entitled to over to that body too.  Fine by me if CNRI wanted to
run that, but CNRI's clearly shouldn't be the sole voice in its decisions.

Unfortunately, public domain faces the same problems:  each future employer
may wish to assert copyright on the enhancements done under their watch.
For liability reasons, it may be easier to talk a company into assigning
copyright to another legal entity than to agree to release work into the
public domain.

picturing-how-this-should-eventually-end-but-not-yet-exactly-how-
    to-get-there-ly y'rs  - tim