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Requiring contributors to sign legal documents before contributing seems arcane and stupid. There are tons of open-source projects that thrive without doing tha

Requiring contributors to sign legal documents before contributing seems arcane and stupid. There are tons of open-source projects that thrive without doing that. Every time I've gotten that question I've simply closed my PR and never attempted to contribute again. I don't think the ostensible benefits weight up for the downsides (fewer contributions). (this is only partially related to the re-licensing, which I don't mind)

rekado 9y ago
"arcane and stupid"? Why? It simplifies license enforcement and license upgrades.
- madez 9y ago
  When you see a group singing in the street and you want to sing the song with them, do you first sign some legal documents or do you just sing? Copyright and patents have become a cancer.
  - izacus 9y ago
    Singing with them - using opensource. Writing new songs with them - contributing to opensource.
  - stan_rogers 9y ago
    Very poor analogy, since you can't force the group in the street to stop singing because you've decided they're singing incorrectly later and somebody's using your riff.
    - sandstrom 9y ago
      Are you sure? https://www.quora.com/Can-I-be-sued-if-I-sing-copyrighted-songs-in-public-but-dont-accept-payment https://www.quora.com/Can-I-be-sued-if-I-sing-copyrighted-so... https://www.unhappybirthday.com/ https://www.unhappybirthday.com/
  - rekado 9y ago
    The fact that copyright is annoying does not mean that we can just ignore it. There are practical advantages (and disadvantages) to copyright assignments. It depends on the project, which weigh heavier.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
pm215 9y ago
It depends rather on what your aim is. Most projects are only interested in producing good software with a thriving community, and requiring copyright assignment or a CLA gets in the way of that. The FSF has another aim though, which is to uphold the free software movement in general and defend the validity of the GPL in particular -- so they have a copyright assignment policy for FSF projects like gcc which helps in achieving that. You might not care about that FSF goal, and the copyright assignment process is a definite barrier to new contributors, but there are reasons behind it and they're neither arcane nor stupid. Other kinds of contributor agreement I know less about, and some of them can be counterproductive or even one-sidedly in favour of the company, but in general they stem from the organisation having some extra aims or requirements beyond the pure desire to have a thriving project. "If in doubt, don't have a CLA or assignment process" is probably good advice though.
- sandstrom 9y ago
  Good points, I agree
majewsky 9y ago
I sort of had the same problem happen to me: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/19596 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/19596

rekado 9y ago

"arcane and stupid"? Why? It simplifies license enforcement and license upgrades.

madez 9y ago
When you see a group singing in the street and you want to sing the song with them, do you first sign some legal documents or do you just sing? Copyright and patents have become a cancer.
- izacus 9y ago
  Singing with them - using opensource. Writing new songs with them - contributing to opensource.
- stan_rogers 9y ago
  Very poor analogy, since you can't force the group in the street to stop singing because you've decided they're singing incorrectly later and somebody's using your riff.
  - sandstrom 9y ago
    Are you sure? https://www.quora.com/Can-I-be-sued-if-I-sing-copyrighted-songs-in-public-but-dont-accept-payment https://www.quora.com/Can-I-be-sued-if-I-sing-copyrighted-so... https://www.unhappybirthday.com/ https://www.unhappybirthday.com/
- rekado 9y ago
  The fact that copyright is annoying does not mean that we can just ignore it. There are practical advantages (and disadvantages) to copyright assignments. It depends on the project, which weigh heavier.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

pm215 9y ago

It depends rather on what your aim is. Most projects are only interested in producing good software with a thriving community, and requiring copyright assignment or a CLA gets in the way of that. The FSF has another aim though, which is to uphold the free software movement in general and defend the validity of the GPL in particular -- so they have a copyright assignment policy for FSF projects like gcc which helps in achieving that. You might not care about that FSF goal, and the copyright assignment process is a definite barrier to new contributors, but there are reasons behind it and they're neither arcane nor stupid. Other kinds of contributor agreement I know less about, and some of them can be counterproductive or even one-sidedly in favour of the company, but in general they stem from the organisation having some extra aims or requirements beyond the pure desire to have a thriving project. "If in doubt, don't have a CLA or assignment process" is probably good advice though.

sandstrom 9y ago
Good points, I agree

majewsky 9y ago

I sort of had the same problem happen to me: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/19596 https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/19596