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Thanks for this comment! I'm glad somebody told me this was on HN. It's a problem with the sentence, which I'll correct shortly. I wanted to mention inbound=ou

Thanks for this comment! I'm glad somebody told me this was on HN. It's a problem with the sentence, which I'll correct shortly. I wanted to mention inbound=outbound, and tried to do so in passing, in the middle of a sentence performing other work. It ends up reading like inbound=outbound is the assumption about GitHub and fora like it, rather than the governance idea of same terms in and out. I definitely don't want to dilute the term or the idea as you've developed it! I _do_ question whether US courts will reliably imply inbound=outbound when the contributor is silent on license. There will be circumstantial and perhaps specific conduct evidence for abandonment, estoppel, or both. But that's the same line of thinking that applies to unlicensed projects. Not good enough. For what it's worth, I support the idea of the DCO, but never recommend it. I'd like to think my criticisms are best summed up in the alternative I've been working on: https://github.com/berneout/berneout-pledge https://github.com/berneout/berneout-pledge The last paragraphs in that README are the most important. "CLA or not to CLA" is primarily a culture issue. It needs to be solved as one.

tzs 10y ago
It was an excellent article. I'd have liked to have seen more on sublicensing vs. direct licensing, but that's probably a big enough subject that it deserves its own article. In particular, I don't think there's been enough discussion on what this means in the case where the copyright owner decides that they no longer wish to have their code distributed under the original license. If I distribute my code under a license using the direct model, and subsequently announce that I'm no longer granting licenses, and you (who obtained my code before I made that announcement) distribute a copy, I think there is little question you are OK. You've got your direct license from me. But what about the person you distribute to? I think they would be OK to use it, but I'm not sure they could redistribute. Maybe someone could make an argument involving third party beneficiaries that could force me to license your recipients under the original license, but that's going to be an ugly fight. If I had originally used a license that allowed sublicensing, wouldn't things be a lot cleaner? People you distribute to after I stop issuing new licenses would simply get their license from you via you exercising the sublicensing right I gave you. Some free/open licenses now say in the license text that they are irrevocable, which would seem to address this problem, but thinking about it more I'm not so sure. If my original license using the direct model said it was irrevocable, does that really mean I have to keep granting new direct licenses to anyone who obtains the software from a prior licensee, or does it just mean that I cannot cancel the license of someone once they obtain a license from me?

tzs 10y ago

It was an excellent article. I'd have liked to have seen more on sublicensing vs. direct licensing, but that's probably a big enough subject that it deserves its own article. In particular, I don't think there's been enough discussion on what this means in the case where the copyright owner decides that they no longer wish to have their code distributed under the original license. If I distribute my code under a license using the direct model, and subsequently announce that I'm no longer granting licenses, and you (who obtained my code before I made that announcement) distribute a copy, I think there is little question you are OK. You've got your direct license from me. But what about the person you distribute to? I think they would be OK to use it, but I'm not sure they could redistribute. Maybe someone could make an argument involving third party beneficiaries that could force me to license your recipients under the original license, but that's going to be an ugly fight. If I had originally used a license that allowed sublicensing, wouldn't things be a lot cleaner? People you distribute to after I stop issuing new licenses would simply get their license from you via you exercising the sublicensing right I gave you. Some free/open licenses now say in the license text that they are irrevocable, which would seem to address this problem, but thinking about it more I'm not so sure. If my original license using the direct model said it was irrevocable, does that really mean I have to keep granting new direct licenses to anyone who obtains the software from a prior licensee, or does it just mean that I cannot cancel the license of someone once they obtain a license from me?