[Python-Dev] Deciding against the CLA

[Glenn Linderman]

On 4/15/2013 12:15 AM, Ben Finney wrote:
> Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> writes:
>
>> On 13/04/13 20:30, Ben Finney wrote:
>>> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:
>>>> A failure to sign the CLA is already a decision not to contribute
>>>> to the distribution
>>> As someone who cannot in good faith sign the CLA, that
>>> characterisation is far from accurate: I would very much like to
>>> contribute to the Python distribution, and so have not decided as
>>> you describe.
>> Could you explain, briefly, why you cannot sign the CLA?
> Because software freedom in a work is undermined when any recipient is
> granted special legal privilege in the work.
>
> As it currently stands, the Contributor Agreement grants special legal
> privilege in the work (the power to unilaterally re-license the work) to
> the PSF.
>
> By “special privilege”, I mean that this power is granted specially to
> some but denied to all other recipients of the work. Hence to sign the
> Contributor Agreement as it currently stands is to undermine software
> freedom in the resulting work.
>
Easily curable by granting that right to all recipients of the 
contributions you make to PSF, no? Of course, the contributor's 
agreement has no particular need to include such a clause, but you can 
include it in a separately published version of the contributions, to 
keep freedom free...
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