[pydotorg-www] Licensing contributions (Was: Vanished link for AFL v2.1)

[Georg Brandl]

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Am 20.05.2010 22:53, schrieb anatoly techtonik:
> On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 10:22 PM, A.M. Kuchling <amk at amk.ca> wrote:
>> On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 09:47:33PM +0300, anatoly techtonik wrote:
>>> What is the trend about AFL?
>>> Isn't PSF the official license of all Python stuff?
>>
>> Yes, the PSF uses its own license for material where the PSF holds the
>> copyright.
>>
>> But when a person signs a contributor form, which is saying "I grant
>> the PSF the right to use my code/patch/whatever under some license",
>> what license is the *person* -- not the PSF! -- using?
> 
> Isn't it a common sense assumption that if you want contribution to be
> the part of this particular software you agree that it will be
> redistributed alike? If you want other terms - you need to say it
> explicitly. I can only see a point when you want to take GPL code from
> me and then make it Public Domain in the future. As in this case I may
> refuse to contribute, you need to bind me as developer with obscure
> license terms.

There's absolutely no "binding" involved.  Your code is always yours,
and you are free to license it in any other way.  *However*, since the code
you contribute to Python will be distributed under the Python license, the
PSF must be assured that it can do that, now and in the future.  This is
why you have to release it to *us* under a license that allows this act.

>> They need to use a license that lets the PSF take the code and change
>> the license on it to be the PSF license.  The PSF license doesn't
>> actually say re-licensing is allowed.  The Apache 2.0 and Academic
>> Free licenses both explicitly allow re-licensing, so that's why
>> contributors need to pick one of them.
> 
> Does the sentence that Apache 2.0 explicitly allow re-licensing really
> mean that I can drop it or replace with GPL, MIT or put in Public
> Domain at all?
> Why AFL?
> Why MIT or BSD is inappropriate?
> What about CC?

[etc, etc.]

What *I* would really like to know is why you are asking all these questions,
esp. in a way that implies that we don't have satisfying answers.  Be assured
that we have, that they are mostly nontrivial (since legalese is involved),
and that until now I haven't heard of any potential contributor taking back
his contributions because he was uncomfortable with either initial license
offered.

Maybe we can discuss the issue again when your contribution form is due?

Georg
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