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Don’t sign a CLA

drewdevault.com

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Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#121

Post by JdeBP »

kradroy wrote: post #50

My father told me long ago: "After you've done the work the only thing you should sign is a check you're about to deposit."

Your father's advice does not scale. Not all legal systems work the same way, and in some having the payee sign one is an indorsement by the payee that makes it payable to third parties (which will be whoever the bearer happens to be for a simple signature, an indorsement in blank). Whereas having the payee not sign checks, and having checks crossed as "A/C payee", are considered the better practices.

Or, to echo Drew DeVault somewhat: Don't sign cheques made out to you as the payee.

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/32/section/1

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/45-46/61/section/34

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/45-46/61/part/II/cr...

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#122

Post by rhn_mk1 »

nulbyte wrote: post #114
ddevault wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. Thanks for writing up your thoughts. >As they say, not all open source is FOSS This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". >> Free and open source software licenses grant explicit freedoms to three groups: the maintainers, the users, and the contributors. >This is not the case of all open source licenses This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: https://openso…

>> As they say, not all open source is FOSS > This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". Yes it is, and I'm not sure the commenter does. Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free. The term "free and open-source" signifies both. > This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: > https://opensource.org/osd That is not the definition of open…

It does seem though that the majority of uses of "open source" describes Free Software. This is in line with the origins of the phrase as well - it was created to remove the confusion stemming from the adjective "free":

https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source...

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#124

Post by yarrel »

nulbyte wrote: post #114
ddevault wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. Thanks for writing up your thoughts. >As they say, not all open source is FOSS This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". >> Free and open source software licenses grant explicit freedoms to three groups: the maintainers, the users, and the contributors. >This is not the case of all open source licenses This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: https://openso…

>> As they say, not all open source is FOSS > This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". Yes it is, and I'm not sure the commenter does. Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free. The term "free and open-source" signifies both. > This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: > https://opensource.org/osd That is not the definition of open…

> Open-source is an adjective referring to the fact that that source code is available.

It's not. Let's not muddy the waters that this term was already introduced to further.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#125

Post by blihp »

lmm wrote: post #108
blihp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that the author was aware of that grant at the time they contributed the code since it was implicit in the license. CLAs are often essentially a way to backdoor additional grants after the fact without the original author's permission.

How so? If anything the CLAs I've seen are much more explicit that your code may be distributed as part of a future closed-source version of the project than, say, the MIT license is.

With all of the well-known open source licenses, it's generally clear to the author up front what rights they are granting. With CLAs they are usually fuzzy by design: maybe the rights will be used to go closed source, maybe to sue anther entity, etc. (it generally depends on what's in the best interest of the entity who wrote the CLA) Sure, they're explicit in the sense that they say 'we can do pretty much anything we want down the road' because they have to... that's the point of the CLA: to grant the authoring entity the right to make decisions down the road without consulting those who contributed. Oracle is practically a textbook example of why this is usually a bad thing for developers/users.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#126

Post by yarrel »

scrollaway wrote: post #92
sevensor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, and I believe it's because it gives them a better platform from which to pursue GPL violation claims. I think that's basically sensible and an exception to OP's general statement -- if you're contributing to an FSF project, you need to understand that what you're doing is political as well as technical. You're giving FSF more ammunition with which to enforce copyleft. FSF is an exception to the concern that…

In other words, "do as I say, not as I do".

Anyone can assign their copyrights to the FSF. So no. ;-)

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#127

Post by jake_the_third »

yarrel wrote: post #124
nulbyte wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As they say, not all open source is FOSS > This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". Yes it is, and I'm not sure the commenter does. Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free. The term "free and open-source" signifies both. > This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: > https://opensource.org/osd That is not the definition of open…

> Open-source is an adjective referring to the fact that that source code is available. It's not. Let's not muddy the waters that this term was already introduced to further.

I agree. Regardless of what GP's feelings on the matter are, Open Source is a proper and well-defined term that was originally used as a way to sell open software business models to high-level execs.

I've never seen anyone advocate the term as open-but-not-free beyond those stating it to defend a point.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#128

Post by JdeBP »

mikeash wrote: post #29
rqs wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the title and the tone implies that you as a contributor should be a FOSS maximalist. But what if somebody was changed the license from BSD to proprietary after you've contributed to the project? Would you still be happy about it then? I think the idea was: I have my code contributed under BSD, so you cannot re-license my code without clearance from me.

That’s a bizarre idea. If you don’t want people doing things the license allows, don’t contribute under that license. If you don’t want people relicensing your code without your specific permission, then the BSD license is not the one you want, and you shouldn’t contribute to projects that use it.

Actually, it is you that have the bizarre idea. BSD licences do not permit people relicensing code without permission of the copyright holder. Copyright licences cannot do so. No copyright licence could do this.

To do this, the actual copyright ownership has to be transferred. A copyright licence is a grant of permission by a copyright owner who retains that ownership. It is not a transfer of ownership.

* http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title17/chap...

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#129

Post by icebraining »

dllthomas wrote: post #46
craigsmansion wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to go full Stallman and say that everything but GPL is evil. Can you provide a quote where he says or implies such a thing?

If so it would be cherry-picked, as I'm pretty sure that's not his position.

In fact, he has advocated for the use of a non-copyleft free license over the GPL, in the case of libogg.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#130

Post by mjg59 »

nulbyte wrote: post #114
ddevault wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. Thanks for writing up your thoughts. >As they say, not all open source is FOSS This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". >> Free and open source software licenses grant explicit freedoms to three groups: the maintainers, the users, and the contributors. >This is not the case of all open source licenses This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: https://openso…

>> As they say, not all open source is FOSS > This isn't true - you mean "not all open source is copyleft". Yes it is, and I'm not sure the commenter does. Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free. The term "free and open-source" signifies both. > This is also not true. You should review the open source definition: > https://opensource.org/osd That is not the definition of open…

> Software may be free but not open-source, and it may be open-source but not free.

Other than version 1 of the Apple Public Source license, which is considered open source but not free (and also now entirely unused), what cases are you thinking of?

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