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Don’t sign a CLA

drewdevault.com

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Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#131

Post by jiveturkey »

Legogris wrote: post #4

It's a great point to be aware of, but the title and the tone implies that you as a contributor should be a FOSS maximalist. As they say, not all open source is FOSS. And some people are OK with that. Let them contribute, as long as they are aware of the implications. When I discover bugs in open-source projects during my day job (which is on a closed-source project), I will be much happier having those fixes merged…

Come on. It's a personal blog. It's understood to be a personal opinion. The title and message is quite fine as-is.

He even concludes: "if you are contributing to open source and you want it to stay that way, you should not sign a CLA."

if, if, if.

I generally agree with you (!), BTW, but the author does a great job justifying the when and why of his own opinion, and I find it sound.

IOW, if I want to contribute back because I don't want to maintain a private fork or spearhead a public fork, I just want to be done with it, totally fine, even by the author's opinion, which is fully qualified with the statement "and you want it to stay that way". This is reasonable and not at all forceful like Stallman.

You are reacting to something that isn't written nor implied.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#132

Post by kemitchell »

I recently blogged about an alternative to contributor license agreements without any single foundation or BDFL, that cover relicensing of past code to respond to license issues:

https://writing.kemitchell.com/2018/09/30/Contributor-Counci...

I think the fundamental legal mechanism of cross-licensing is correct, but the quorum-vote-like solicitation mechanism needs more thought and feedback.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#133

Post by carlosdp »

mjg59 wrote: post #130
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…

> 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?

Epic's Unreal Engine is another example

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#134

Post by lmm »

blihp wrote: post #125
lmm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

Not my experience at all.

> Oracle is practically a textbook example of why this is usually a bad thing for developers/users.

What would have happened differently there if people had contributed under an MIT license instead of signing a CLA?

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#135

Post by phoe-krk »

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…

No. "Source available" is not the same as "open source".

https://haacked.com/archive/2006/07/26/CodeAvailableVsOpenSo...

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#136

Post by mikeash »

JdeBP wrote: post #128
mikeash wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://usc…

You don't need ownership to relicense. You just need a license which permits relicensing, which BSD does (as long as the new license is compatible, and they usually are).

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#137

Post by [deleted] »

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".

[deleted]

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#138

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

hyperpape wrote: post #117
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the FSF gets a pass here, given that the GPL has explicit protections against the negative behaviors warned about in the article.

I can see your point of view, though one nitpick: the GPL doesn't prevent shenanigans any more than an MIT license. With a CLA, the owners can relicense the code as a non-open source license. With both MIT or GPL, you retain the rights to develop the previously released code. It's the FSF's commitment (mentioned upthread) to not do that which arguably makes it safe to sign a CLA with the FSF.

But with the GPL, all future modifications to the code are required to also be GPL. You cannot make a closed-source fork of a GPL'd project.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#139

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

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…

>That is not the definition of open-source (or even "open source"), a common term for software the source code of which is available; it is the Open Source Definition, a copyrighted work published by The Open Source Initiative.

This is blatantly false. You will find it very difficult to find any respected authority whose definition of open source differs from the OSI's definition.

Re: Don’t sign a CLA

#140

Post by sytse »

I agree with the author that a CLA is one sided since contributors are at the mercy of the organization they sign their rights over to. For the open source code a Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO) is more appropriate. I learned this when Debian brought it up https://about.gitlab.com/2017/11/01/gitlab-switches-to-dco-l...

For our proprietary source available code we do use a CLA since it is a custom license and we want the option to make changes to it in the future.

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