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

[M.-A. Lemburg]

On 08.02.2014 03:08, Ben Finney wrote:
> Richard Fontana <fontana at sharpeleven.org> writes:
> 
>> Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
>>> […] the fact that they *have* done it [change the license on the
>>> entirety of Wikipedia, without any CLA] means either that Wikimedia
>>> foundation are special somehow, or PSF are special somehow, or
>>> something else explains the difference.
>>
>> If I'm not misremembering the Wikipedia license change was achieved
>> through FSF update of the GFDL. So probably not too relevant.
> 
> You're right <URL:https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3-faq.html>.
> Version 1.3 was created specifically to allow Wikipedia to change its
> license.
> 
> By virtue of the *grant* of license from contributors to the Wikimedia
> Foundation, the “or any later version” clause allows Wikimedia to
> redistribute those contributions under new FDL versions, because all
> contributors can be presumed to have already granted that permission.
> 
> The license granted to PSF by contributors to Python, on the other hand,
> does not have any existing clause permitting automatically changing the
> license. So PSF does not have automatic permission from contributors to
> change the license of Python.

That's correct, but instead of having to relicense Python and
thus adding yet another license on top of the Python license stack,
the PSF gets permission to distribute the contribution under any
open source license the board chooses.

This is the most important detail of the contrib forms. We simply
cannot run into problems such as the Wikipedia relicensing needing
changes to the original license.

-- 
Marc-Andre Lemburg
eGenix.com

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