[Python-ideas] Contributions to official documentation versus contributions to wiki

[Ben Finney]

Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> writes:

> On 11 Aug 2013 19:20, "Ben Finney" <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> > Does this make the PSF awful? No, of course not. But I can't pretend
> > it is acceptable to grant special terms to one party in the
> > community.
>
> We don't do it for fun - we do it because we don't have the right to
> relicense some of the previously donated source code, and don't want
> to spend the lawyer time needed to determine if we can get by without
> those relicensing rights for new contributions while complying with
> those existing obligations.

You're right.

For the benefit of this forum: I've discussed this with Nick in person,
and we agree that the PSF is in a bind on this matter because of awkward
ancient license terms on some code in Python.

We'd both prefer that the PSF could accept “license in = license out”,
that is, no contributor agreement needed. It seems to me that the Apache
License grants PSF everything they need, with no need for a contributor
agreement; but neither of us has the legal expertise to know, and
without that expertise, it's PSF that bears the risk.

So, for what it's worth, I don't have ill will to the PSF on this matter.

> […] I consider it very poor form to use freely provided PSF
> communication channels to lobby against a licensing model the PSF
> believes it is legally obliged to use (choosing not to contribute
> directly yourself is a different story, as that's an individual
> ethical decision).

My apologies, I agree this is inappropriate.

-- 
 \            “If you continue running Windows, your system may become |
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_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney