3 ms·
Open source means anyone can make changes and redistribute them, not just that anyone can use the software. Let's say Bob writes a little stub of a project. It
by cestith 9y ago
Open source means anyone can make changes and redistribute them, not just that anyone can use the software.
Let's say Bob writes a little stub of a project. It's kind of useful, and he licenses it with L0. Then someone, let's call her Jane, using the noncommercial rights listed takes her copy, adds features, fixes bugs, and speeds up the performance. Jane's contributions far outweigh the initial contributions from Bob, but she added enhancements one at a time rather than starting from scratch. Then IBM needs 30,000 seat licenses for company desktops. The money for the commercial use of Jane's contributions goes to... Bob?
- andybak 9y agoThis comment crystallizes my concerns. I use and write open source because software is clay, not shiny spheres. People often need to blend and mould code. Tracking which bits of clay end up where is a huge burden. Those fragments of code that Oracle sued Google over? That's where this leads.
- slavik81 9y agoThat depends on what license Jane used for her contributions. A contributor license agreement (CLA) would make that a lot clearer in the case that she submitted her contributions back to the main project. If I used L0, I would definitely have a CLA. If she forked it and maintained her fork separately, it seems simple enough how things work if she updated the license file. You'd just end up with the combination of her new license and Bob's old license. However, it is a little unclear what it means if she didn't change the license file. How can you be sure that she just hadn't yet gotten around to updating the payment information?