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

[anatoly techtonik]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Michael Foord <mfoord at python.org> wrote:
>>
>> 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?
>> Was there some discussion about it?
>>
>
> It was decided by the PSF under the advice of their lawyers quite some time
> ago. Why do you care about this?

I was going to dedicate my time to enhance some of pydotorg services.
I would like to contribute them under the terms of WTFPL license. From
the other side it would be nice (but I do not demand it) to borrow
bugfixes from other contributors back, because I will save time for
rewriting this stuff for other installations. But I was totally
confused by the terms of APL and difference between versions, and
differences between Apache 2.0, and PSF license, and the necessity to
sign contributors' agreement, send it by mail (yes, real world
"postal" mail), perhaps pay a lawyer to validate it? Because everybody
can mail you my form. Perhaps I also do not want to disclose my
personal details to any of PSF corporation members (of course, because
I am a troll). I would like to sign electronic form with my email
account. In the end I am the owner, I make all contributions from this
account, so the only freedom I gain from signing a contributors'
agreement is that if my account is hacked you can immediately send an
order to jail me. So, why my email is not enough to sign an agreement?

>> Why PSF can't change license PSF License 2 to PSF License 3 that is
>> simpler and allow contributions?
>>
>
> What are you talking about - the PSF license is the license that the Python
> source code is *distributed* under. It is very liberal, but has nothing to
> do with contributions to Python.

I need to sign contributor's agreement to dedicate my code to PSF, but
if I want bugfixes back into my code/library, PSF license seems to
directly affect it.

> Anyone with questions is free to ask. I've rarely heard any questions
> though, it doesn't seem to be a problem in practise beyond the beauracracy
> of getting potential contributors to sign an agreement in the first place.

And how many potential contributors were, ahem, pissed off by this requirement?

> All those things are possible under the current licensing situation. If you
> really want to claim it is *actually* a problem you will have to explain
> how...

Suggestion to drop AFL and Apache 2.0 licenses and leave only
agreement sent with other reply.

> Michael Foord
>
> --
> http://www.ironpythoninaction.com/
> http://www.voidspace.org.uk/blog
>
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-- 
anatoly.