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I was not surprised to see that you're a lawyer at Google, so of course you think Google is doing the right thing. As you know, what the CLA is doing is making

I was not surprised to see that you're a lawyer at Google, so of course you think Google is doing the right thing. As you know, what the CLA is doing is making sure Google can't get sued for patents or copyright claims on the software. That's what I meant by shifting the blame from Google to the contributors. Google can just say, look, we have this CLA here, so it means we didn't do it, go talk to the one who signed the CLA. Not our problem, says Google. So now it's up to the individual who signed the CLA to deal with whatever legal fallout happens, a person who probably has a lot less lawyers than Google to handle the problem. If you really wanted reassurance that the code is being contributed properly, there are other documents that could be signed which would be much more two-way than Google's CLA. For example, GNU's copyright assignment includes a promise from GNU that they will always keep the software free, with GNU absorbing the legal burden to do so. KDE's CLA has a similar wording, talking about free software principles, and it's also optional for contributors. Now I am going to be more adversarial and unpleasant. I don't like the Google hivemind. Google employees have a very uniform mode of thought on certain topics. This includes the beliefs that the GPL is dangerous and must never be used by Google unless forced to (i.e. only on software that came from outside of Google), that the AGPL is the ultimate evil, and that under all circumstances Google must be protected above everything. Google only legally cares about Google, no more. You can pretend like the CLA also benefits the other contributors, but that's not really the case. The external contributors could take Tensorflow, fork it away from Google, keep working without a CLA, and everything would be right. All that's necessary is the implicit agreement to the free license (for example, the clause in the GPL that says using the software grants you the rights provided by the GPL). Like you say, should a problem arise, all they have to do is remove the offending code.

DannyBee 9y ago
"I was not surprised to see that you're a lawyer at Google, so of course you think Google is doing the right thing." Actually, it's more than that if you really want to get into it! I came up with Google's policies and CLA. But it's always great to attack people for what they do instead of actually engage on the merits! "As you know, what the CLA is doing is making sure Google can't get sued for patents or copyright claims on the software." This is false, so i don't know it. It's making sure the innocent end user can't get sued. Google can and has gotten sued for what contributors do. Surprise! In fact, in that case, the contributors were not even notified. We took care of it. Double surprise, apparently. " So now it's up to the individual who signed the CLA to deal with whatever legal fallout happens, a person who probably has a lot less lawyers than Google to handle the problem." So just to be clear if an individual deliberately screwed up, you think Google should handle the problem because they have more lawyers? That's an interesting notion. Hey, i fucked up my neighbors house, but he should worry about it, because he makes more money than me. Past that, you think the end users should pay the price? Because again, the issue you are complaining about is there to protect the end users, not Google. As I already mentioned, Google already tends takes care of these issues on it's own. "If you really wanted reassurance that the code is being contributed properly, there are other documents that could be signed which would be much more two-way than Google's CLA." Not really. " For example, GNU's copyright assignment includes a promise from GNU that they will always keep the software free, with GNU absorbing the legal burden to do so. KDE's CLA has a similar wording, talking about free software principles, and it's also optional for contributors." Both of these, which i'm intimately familiar with, have precisely the same issue you complain about in the first paragraph. So again, your argument seems non-coherent. Neither of these CLA's indemnify contributors or otherwise prevent them from being sued. In fact, they both do exactly the same as the Google CLA in this regard. " This includes the beliefs that the GPL is dangerous and must never be used by Google unless forced to (i.e. only on software that came from outside of Google)," This is also just false. You literally have no idea what you are on about. In fact, if you bothered to look farther, you'd see that i was a GCC maintainer and have contributed and used GPL software (both FSF-and non at Google for many years. Google happily uses and contributes to tons of GPL software, and has no such policies or thoughts. Again, i'm the person who made the policies, so i would know. When I first joined one of the first things I did was get Google to sign a blanket copyright assignment with the FSF. "that the AGPL is the ultimate evil, " Whatever this is supposed to mean. We have several practical problems with the AGPL that other companies have as well. We don't avoid it for ideological reasons. Interestingly if you ask Eben , you'd find that he also has concerns with how it achieves its goals. "You can pretend like the CLA also benefits the other contributors, but that's not really the case. " I actually explicitly have said, numerous times, the CLA is mainly for the protection of end users and the project. "Like you say, should a problem arise, all they have to do is remove the offending code." This is where, like Bradley, you simply have no idea what you are talking about. That only works in very simple situations. Overall, your argument comes off as "i have an axe to grind with Google". Nothing you have stated makes a lot of sense. The people you hold up on a pedestal have precisely the same legal issue you refer to, but you randomly change arguments about what exactly your issue is. As you surely also know Google CLA is a copy of the Apache CLA with one of the obligations removed because we felt it was too onerous (there are no other changes). So your real problem is with the thousands of projects that use Apache CLAs.
- jordigh 9y ago
  So, if Google doesn't have a problem with the GPL or doesn't think it's dangerous, what's the software that originally came from Google that was GPL-licensed? Your gcc example doesn't count, because like I said, Google was coerced to use it for gcc. When did Google license something under the GPL because they wanted to defend their copyleft? And yeah, the practical problem with the AGPL that you have is that you think your company will be destroyed if the world could see your source code. That's why you tell all of your employees that they can't even consider touching software that's AGPLed. So, what are you hiding there? The only reason Google will use GPLed software is because they managed to de-fang it. Once the AGPL put the fangs back in, oh no, can't have that. For Google, like for Apple, Microsoft and Facebook; free software is only intended for relatively unimportant scraps. The real meat, the real code, must remain secret, must remain safe. That's how you can control the users, how you can better target ads at them. Imagine the havoc if we could see the source code for AdSense or Gmail! On the other hand, thank you for clarifying how the CLA works. No sarcasm here, I'm honestly thankful about that. Sorry, I was wrong about that.
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I think most people in the ecosystem are happy that Google doesn't tend to use the GPL, since doing so would make it more difficult to use that code commercially. In commerce, GPL'ing at the origin is mostly a tactic for protecting the commercial value of code; for instance, Sourcefire kept Snort under the GPL so that nobody could effectively compete with them using the Snort codebase, since they had the asymmetric ability as copyright owners to make private enhancements while competitors needed to public; Sleepycat GPL'd their database so that commercial software projects that wanted to use BerkeleyDB had to pay for an alternate license, &c. Taking from a GPL project and refusing to contribute back to it on GPL terms is antisocial, but then, Google doesn't do that (they do they opposite, contributing more than any normal software firm). But declining to originate software under the GPL isn't antisocial. I appreciate what the GPL does and have used it for projects myself, but virtually anyone who works professionally knows to think twice before adopting GPL'd libraries and thus constraining their future options. I don't think this criticism of yours really makes any sense. Also, as a bystander to this little debate on HN, the sincere thanks you just gave was a good start, but you also cast aspersions on his motives for discussing this here, and I think you owe him an apology as well. It's an HN rule not to say those kinds of things about other commenters.

DannyBee 9y ago

"I was not surprised to see that you're a lawyer at Google, so of course you think Google is doing the right thing." Actually, it's more than that if you really want to get into it! I came up with Google's policies and CLA. But it's always great to attack people for what they do instead of actually engage on the merits! "As you know, what the CLA is doing is making sure Google can't get sued for patents or copyright claims on the software." This is false, so i don't know it. It's making sure the innocent end user can't get sued. Google can and has gotten sued for what contributors do. Surprise! In fact, in that case, the contributors were not even notified. We took care of it. Double surprise, apparently. " So now it's up to the individual who signed the CLA to deal with whatever legal fallout happens, a person who probably has a lot less lawyers than Google to handle the problem." So just to be clear if an individual deliberately screwed up, you think Google should handle the problem because they have more lawyers? That's an interesting notion. Hey, i fucked up my neighbors house, but he should worry about it, because he makes more money than me. Past that, you think the end users should pay the price? Because again, the issue you are complaining about is there to protect the end users, not Google. As I already mentioned, Google already tends takes care of these issues on it's own. "If you really wanted reassurance that the code is being contributed properly, there are other documents that could be signed which would be much more two-way than Google's CLA." Not really. " For example, GNU's copyright assignment includes a promise from GNU that they will always keep the software free, with GNU absorbing the legal burden to do so. KDE's CLA has a similar wording, talking about free software principles, and it's also optional for contributors." Both of these, which i'm intimately familiar with, have precisely the same issue you complain about in the first paragraph. So again, your argument seems non-coherent. Neither of these CLA's indemnify contributors or otherwise prevent them from being sued. In fact, they both do exactly the same as the Google CLA in this regard. " This includes the beliefs that the GPL is dangerous and must never be used by Google unless forced to (i.e. only on software that came from outside of Google)," This is also just false. You literally have no idea what you are on about. In fact, if you bothered to look farther, you'd see that i was a GCC maintainer and have contributed and used GPL software (both FSF-and non at Google for many years. Google happily uses and contributes to tons of GPL software, and has no such policies or thoughts. Again, i'm the person who made the policies, so i would know. When I first joined one of the first things I did was get Google to sign a blanket copyright assignment with the FSF. "that the AGPL is the ultimate evil, " Whatever this is supposed to mean. We have several practical problems with the AGPL that other companies have as well. We don't avoid it for ideological reasons. Interestingly if you ask Eben , you'd find that he also has concerns with how it achieves its goals. "You can pretend like the CLA also benefits the other contributors, but that's not really the case. " I actually explicitly have said, numerous times, the CLA is mainly for the protection of end users and the project. "Like you say, should a problem arise, all they have to do is remove the offending code." This is where, like Bradley, you simply have no idea what you are talking about. That only works in very simple situations. Overall, your argument comes off as "i have an axe to grind with Google". Nothing you have stated makes a lot of sense. The people you hold up on a pedestal have precisely the same legal issue you refer to, but you randomly change arguments about what exactly your issue is. As you surely also know Google CLA is a copy of the Apache CLA with one of the obligations removed because we felt it was too onerous (there are no other changes). So your real problem is with the thousands of projects that use Apache CLAs.

jordigh 9y ago
So, if Google doesn't have a problem with the GPL or doesn't think it's dangerous, what's the software that originally came from Google that was GPL-licensed? Your gcc example doesn't count, because like I said, Google was coerced to use it for gcc. When did Google license something under the GPL because they wanted to defend their copyleft? And yeah, the practical problem with the AGPL that you have is that you think your company will be destroyed if the world could see your source code. That's why you tell all of your employees that they can't even consider touching software that's AGPLed. So, what are you hiding there? The only reason Google will use GPLed software is because they managed to de-fang it. Once the AGPL put the fangs back in, oh no, can't have that. For Google, like for Apple, Microsoft and Facebook; free software is only intended for relatively unimportant scraps. The real meat, the real code, must remain secret, must remain safe. That's how you can control the users, how you can better target ads at them. Imagine the havoc if we could see the source code for AdSense or Gmail! On the other hand, thank you for clarifying how the CLA works. No sarcasm here, I'm honestly thankful about that. Sorry, I was wrong about that.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I think most people in the ecosystem are happy that Google doesn't tend to use the GPL, since doing so would make it more difficult to use that code commercially. In commerce, GPL'ing at the origin is mostly a tactic for protecting the commercial value of code; for instance, Sourcefire kept Snort under the GPL so that nobody could effectively compete with them using the Snort codebase, since they had the asymmetric ability as copyright owners to make private enhancements while competitors needed to public; Sleepycat GPL'd their database so that commercial software projects that wanted to use BerkeleyDB had to pay for an alternate license, &c. Taking from a GPL project and refusing to contribute back to it on GPL terms is antisocial, but then, Google doesn't do that (they do they opposite, contributing more than any normal software firm). But declining to originate software under the GPL isn't antisocial. I appreciate what the GPL does and have used it for projects myself, but virtually anyone who works professionally knows to think twice before adopting GPL'd libraries and thus constraining their future options. I don't think this criticism of yours really makes any sense. Also, as a bystander to this little debate on HN, the sincere thanks you just gave was a good start, but you also cast aspersions on his motives for discussing this here, and I think you owe him an apology as well. It's an HN rule not to say those kinds of things about other commenters.