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CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

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Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#61

Post by bmitc »

thatcks wrote: post #42
bmitc wrote: post #17

How is a CLA any different of a legal agreement than agreeing to a license? The CLAs I have seen basically boil down to the project maintainers maintaining ownership of the code, ability to adjust the license if desired, and protect them from people contributing code that the contributor doesn't have the rights for. I have seen projects suffer from single contributors stubbornly refusing to budge on relicensing, even…

A CLA is a legal contract between two parties. An open source license is a general grant of additional permissions under copyright (and sometimes some additional promises regarding things like patents), provided that the person using those permissions (to make and distribute copies) adheres to certain requirements. (I am the author of the linked-to article.)

How is a software license not a legal contract? Everywhere I've seen treats it as such.

A normal CLA is just making things that are implicit when contributing code explicit. It is a clarifying statement and agreement on who maintains control. So if the complaint is that CLAs force you and your company or institution to be explicit when contributing code, then I'm not sure I understand the complaint.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#62

Post by remram »

saulpw wrote: post #60
remram wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have a single line at the bottom of your CONTRIBUTING.md stating that contributors assign copyright to you. I doubt that this is worth anything legally. You have probably received and merged many contributions whose author didn't have the right to assign it to you, and having put no effort in checking that, you would probably be the one found in the wrong. https://github.com/saulpw/visidata/blob/develop/C…

If you submit a PR of more than 3 lines changed, a bot asks you to e-sign the CAA before it can be merged.

I didn't see that on any PR when I took a look, that's probably much safer.

As someone who has been turned off by many CLAs before, I find yours [1] pretty clear and straightforward.

[1]: https://cla-assistant.io/saulpw/visidata

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#63

Post by bmitc »

A1kmm wrote: post #26
bmitc wrote: post #17

How is a CLA any different of a legal agreement than agreeing to a license? The CLAs I have seen basically boil down to the project maintainers maintaining ownership of the code, ability to adjust the license if desired, and protect them from people contributing code that the contributor doesn't have the rights for. I have seen projects suffer from single contributors stubbornly refusing to budge on relicensing, even…

If I contribute to an AGPL project and license my changes back to you under AGPL, that means you can't one day decide to start selling my changes together with a closed-source module; the copyleft works to protect me against you deciding to take my changes closed-source, not just to protect the original maintainer from that. If I contribute to an AGPL project and sign a CLA that assigns copyright to you, you might an…

You're just explaining what a CLA does. There's pros and cons toward one. I for one don't see the problem. Yes, the maintainers retain control, and that can be good or bad. But contributors getting a portion of control can also be good or bad.

One way is not strictly better or worse than the other. But if a project that has a CLA also has a currently permissive license, then take the supposedly open source route and fork it.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#64

Post by ndorf »

cxr wrote: post #59
ndorf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot sign the CLA since per its own terms, I would have to get written permission from my employer. Luckily, as I wrote, the change is not copyrightable and no one, including myself or my employer, can claim copyright ownership over it.

> the change is not copyrightable Right. > no one, including myself or my employer, can claim copyright ownership over it People can claim anything they want. Whether they're correct is the thing. I'm suggesting that, since they've articulated a belief that they can't use it without an explicit CLA, you go ahead and yes-and them and play it out both for comedy's sake and the greater good.

I am sympathetic to that view, however, I have no desire to "punish" the authors for choosing to use a CLA in this case. I am not going to waste the time of multiple people at my day job to get this approved, however. Nor do I want my mental health called into question at work, which would be a predictable result of making such a request.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#66

Post by phkahler »

regularfry wrote: post #22
phkahler wrote: post #20

We used to have a CLA for Solvespace (CAD) which is under the GPL3 license. There was some pressure to eliminate it, and some practical reasons as well so we dropped it. Since then, both FreeCAD (assembly 3) and Blender (via CAD sketcher add-on) have been using our constraint solver to great effect. Unfortunately they will probably never be able to tightly integrate it because both those projects are under GPLv2. I s…

I think I'm right in saying that the FreeCAD integration problem could be solved on the solvespace side by relicensing the solver library as LGPL while retaining the GPL for the solvespace application itself. That keeps the set of licenses within your list, and applies the one intended for libraries to the library component. I'm sure that's been suggested and rejected before though - what's your take?

>> relicensing the solver library as LGPL

My take is that's still not possible because we dropped the CLA.

In the past it may have been unlikely because the original author offered the solver under paid terms for commercial use and LGPL would allow commercial use without paying. I'm not sure what my own contribution to that part is, but I'd sooner offer GPLv2 as an option over LGPL.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#67

Post by phkahler »

coldpie wrote: post #28
phkahler wrote: post #20

We used to have a CLA for Solvespace (CAD) which is under the GPL3 license. There was some pressure to eliminate it, and some practical reasons as well so we dropped it. Since then, both FreeCAD (assembly 3) and Blender (via CAD sketcher add-on) have been using our constraint solver to great effect. Unfortunately they will probably never be able to tightly integrate it because both those projects are under GPLv2. I s…

> but we no longer have a CLA so relicensing or dual licensing is off the table. Why is it off the table? Email your contributors and ask if anyone objects. If they object or don't reply, you can probably rewrite the code they contributed, or argue it's too small/trivial to justify a copyright claim. To be blunt, it's extremely unlikely someone is going to sue or even raise a stink over a small contribution. It's mor…

>> Why is it off the table?

Oh it's not really. If either FreeCAD or Blender devs asked for a drop of the solver under their license I'd take a look to see who we'd need permission from and make some effort. It can't be more than 10 people.

Since we switched to Eigen for the matrix stuff, there would also be a decision on whether to use it prior to that change. It was completely stand alone until then.

Solvespace as a whole will remain GPLv3 though.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#68

Post by bruce511 »

pjdesno wrote: post #3
bruce511 wrote: post #2

I think the point was made, but worth emphasising from a different direction. Different organisations have different goals when it comes to releasing code as Open Source. Setting aside universities for the moment, companies (and especially startups) have (hopefully) a strategy which takes their product to commercialism and profitability. Some projects go OSS purely for the marketing, attracting talent, unpaid labour…

I don't think you can set aside universities when you talk about open source - they were the original drivers in this field, and continue to be heavily involved. The biggest difference is probably that most of the software written at a university is done by faculty and grad students and isn't work for hire, so for someone like me there's no reason to ever ask my employer to execute a CLA. But the same problems arise…

Yeah, I would argue the projects requiring a CLA are exactly as you described - companies that want to keep specific future options on the table.

OSS covers a wide spectrum of projects, from the Linux Kernel at the one end, to Frank's recent half-assed attempt at a CSS editor. Clearly no statement is going to cover everything.

The set of projects that require a CLA, and the set of pseudo OSS projects has a high degree of overlap.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#69

Post by regularfry »

phkahler wrote: post #66
regularfry wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm right in saying that the FreeCAD integration problem could be solved on the solvespace side by relicensing the solver library as LGPL while retaining the GPL for the solvespace application itself. That keeps the set of licenses within your list, and applies the one intended for libraries to the library component. I'm sure that's been suggested and rejected before though - what's your take?

>> relicensing the solver library as LGPL My take is that's still not possible because we dropped the CLA. In the past it may have been unlikely because the original author offered the solver under paid terms for commercial use and LGPL would allow commercial use without paying. I'm not sure what my own contribution to that part is, but I'd sooner offer GPLv2 as an option over LGPL.

Got it. That makes sense.

Re: CLAs create different issues than making (small) open source contributions

#70

Post by tpoacher »

williamvds wrote: post #9
cxr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I factor CLAs into my determination of how difficult a project upstream is going to be to work with (incl. whether to remain downstream as a user, too—if I even am at that point) and/or how irrational its maintainers are. It doesn't inspire confidence, for example, when a project doesn't practice good hygiene with respect to keeping a tightly focused bugtracker (usually on the basis that it's too bureaucratic and the…

As soon as I see a CLA I'm turned off even using a piece of FOSS software. I get it's usually just the lawyers protecting the company just in case a contributor tries something dodgy in the future. Out of principle however, I resent the broad assignment of copyright and granting them the right to relicense. Of course I expect most of these projects would never exercise that right, but the mere fact that they _could_…

indeed you could argue that a CLA makes it non-FOSS, since the idea is to restrict your freedoms and the degree of openness in the first place
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