[Python-legal-sig] Round 2: Is CLA required to send and accept edits for Python documentation?

[anatoly techtonik]

On Thu, Jan 30, 2014 at 4:02 PM, Robert Kern <robert.kern at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2014-01-29 18:59, Ben Finney wrote:
>>
>> anatoly techtonik <techtonik at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Correct me if I define the wrong point of conflict, but Wikipedia
>>> content is illegal,
>>
>>
>> That's an incoherent statement: actions, not content, are what
>> constitute illegality.
>>
>> What action, by what party, are you contending is illegal? What law does
>> it violate, in what jurisdiction?
>>
>>> because its contributors didn't sign the CLA, so its CC-BY-SA 3.0
>>> claims are invalid.
>>
>>
>> This implies you're talking about the Python developers redistributing
>> Wikipedia content under CC-BY-SA 3.0 combined with Python code under PSF
>> license.
>>
>> Is that what you're saying is “illegal”? What law is violated, and how?
>
>
> No. In the previous iteration of this thread he has asserted that
> Wikipedia's change of license from the GFDL to the CC-BY-SA 3.0 is the same
> as the relicensing scenario that motivates PSF's CLA requirement. He seems
> to be asserting here that if the PSF stands by its reasoning for its CLA, it
> must also publicly denounce Wikipedia for doing its license change without
> CLAs in place.

Sometimes I feel like it will be better to reset the state and start again,
because I can hardly remember the twisted turns of the thread, but you have
some valid anchors. Let me try to formulate this again.

Wikipedia is all o.k. with re-licensing under CC-BY-SA 3.0, because GFDL
allowed that escape. The question is different. Why Wikipedia doesn't reqiure
any CLA and all edits become CC-BY-SA, and for Python you are obliged to
sign the CLA?

If that is only to allow relicensing then why not say that explicitly
in the next
version of PSF license and abandon CLA at all (following Wikipedia practice)?