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Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google. In turn, GOOG licenses it out under a BSD (or BSD-like) license. This i

Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google. In turn, GOOG licenses it out under a BSD (or BSD-like) license. This is a big difference relative to Linux, and its part of why Linux works so well as a collaboration between competitors. The GPL's copyleft acts as a joint development agreement between equals. IMO, Fuchsia's model only works well for integration partners that are willing to act as sharecroppers in the ecosystem. That certainly does work for some device manufacturers, but it cannot serve as the foundation of a new Free operating system.

hollerith 6y ago
ADDED. Looks like this comment and its replies have no relevance to the Fuchsia project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. I don't see what practical difference the assignment to Google will make. Without using the words "equality", "between equals" and "sharecropper", can you give an example of something you or I will not be able to do with the code that you or I would have been able to do if the copyright had remained with the contributors?
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  Linux itself has never been a GNU project and has never required copyright assignment. It is the combination of features (retain ownership and GPL) together that has enabled collaboration in Linux.
  - hollerith 6y ago
    Are you saying that collaboration on Gnu Compiler Collection, binutils, bash, bison, CLISP, coreutils, etc, has been inhibited by the requirement for copyright assignment to the FSF?
    - brandmeyer 6y ago
      There's a big difference between GNU and Linux in terms of their collaboration. With the exception of GCC, most of the utilities you named have been maintained by a very small group of people. GCC itself has definitely been inhibited by the copyright assignment. There have been a few different ports that were not upstreamed specifically because of the CLA. AVR32 and C6000 come to mind off the top of my head.
      - hollerith 6y ago
        As far as I am aware, the only times contributions were not incorporated were because the work was done by under the terms of an employment contract with the result that the employer ended up owning the copyright, then the employer decided not to sign the CLA. Can you think of a single instance in which code written by an individual contributor not bound by an employment contract was prevented from being incorporated into a project that required copyright be assigned to a central entity? I have read multiple accounts of open-source contributors who have successfully negotiated when being hired that copyright to any code written on their own time on the own hardware will remain with them (so as not to complicate their contributions to open-source projects).
        jononor 6y ago
        That is a significant limitation. A considerable amount of open source software is written while people are employed, as part of their work.
        hollerith 6y ago
        Sure, but no open-source project wants contributions by contributors who do not legally own the code because in that case the actual owner of the code can petition the court to issue an injuction on the project preventing further distribution of the code till the offending code is removed from the project. (They can also sue any user of the project for damages.) Wikipedia has to worry about the same thing, BTW: contributors who upload text whose copyright is owned by some entity who never consented to the upload, and they have policies in procedures in place to correct it when it happens. It's not like CLA's are the only obstacle to employees contributing to the open-source projects. In fact, you might say that the main purpose of a CLA is to surface copyright-ownership problems early, when the cost of correcting them is lower.
- diegocg 6y ago
  The FSF is a non profit organisation, Google is one of the biggest corporations. There is a big difference.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    Doesn't invalidate the original post if you were to replace google with FSF. You might be fine granting ownership to the FSF, but not everyone is.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  If I want to distribute derivative works of the Linux kernel, I need to release those works to all. My competitors can take advantage of this, but in the end they are bound by similar rules. This produces a feedback loop in which contributions back may be used by everyone under pretty much equal terms. If you assign your copyright to Google, they may make use of those changes and integrate them into further development and then _not_ release those changes or release those changes under another license. Do you see the practical difference now?
  - hollerith 6y ago
    You are describing the difference between the GPL and BSD-like licenses. You have not said anything about the difference between a BSD-like license with copyright remaining with the contributors versus BSD-like license with copyright assigned to Google.
    - CogitoCogito 6y ago
      Well if I have the copyright I can straight up sell software based upon it without telling people you made it. Or I can release your code or derivatives of it under a different license while privately selling it under other licenses for profit. If these things don't bother you, then feel free to contribute. In fact, what I'm trying to understand exactly is if I assume that you are correct that there is no difference, then why would Google require the contribution in the first place? edit: If this ( https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual ) is the CLA in question, then you additionally agree on a patent grant to Google and those those Google distributes it to. So if Samsung takes the code and distributes it to other customers those customers and Samsung are not covered by the same grant? Why is this all centered on Google? Why is not simply a general patent grant as part of the submission to anyone receiving the code?
      - derefr 6y ago
        > In fact, what I'm trying to understand exactly is if I assume that you are correct that there is no difference, then why would Google require the contribution in the first place? The difference isn't relevant 99% of the time, but it comes up if the maintainership of a work tries to re-license the work. Works without assigned ownership cannot practically be re-licensed, as you'd have to get individual consent from all owning parties. This came up a lot when GPLv3 was introduced — many projects wanted to migrate from GPLv2 to GPLv3, but couldn't, because they never acquired legal ownership of contributed code, and so didn't have the right to re-license the contributors' code.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  > You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. Even were that true today, the difference is that I basically trust the FSF.
abarth 6y ago
> Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google That is not accurate. Fuchsia uses the standard Google CLA: "You do not surrender ownership of your contribution, and you do not give up any of your rights to use your contribution elsewhere." https://cla.developers.google.com/about https://cla.developers.google.com/about
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  There's a big difference between licensing code to the world under the terms of Apache 2.0, and licensing code to Google under whatever terms they feel like now or at any time in the future.
  - dhodell 6y ago
    Is there? Apache 2.0 includes clauses for patent indemnification and allowing sub-licensing derived work.
  - skybrian 6y ago
    I don't think it's an important difference. If you're doing open source at all, you're losing control over what's done with your code, including allowing it to be used by competitors and "bad guys" however you define that. See (5) and (6) in the open source definition: no discrimination against persons or groups, and no discrimination against fields of endeavor. If you're unwilling to relinquish control, no open source license is going to be good enough. At best you might scare some risk-adverse companies away from using it, but there are still going to be a lot of people you dislike who can use your software to nefarious ends.
trasz 6y ago
With BSD-style licenses there's still a strong incentive to share code. That's why permissively-licensed projects, from Node, to PostgreSQL, to FreeBSD, work. With GPL-style licenses, there's an incentive to avoid putting effort into development, and instead undercut other parties who did invest, and then had to share their code.
- saghm 6y ago
  > That's why permissively-licensed projects, from Node, to PostgreSQL, to FreeBSD, work. Sure, but there are plenty of copyleft-licensed projects that also work? This isn't a very convincing argument.
  - trasz 6y ago
    Sure, both work. It's a counter-argument to the claim that GPL is somehow superior.

hollerith 6y ago

ADDED. Looks like this comment and its replies have no relevance to the Fuchsia project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25348935 You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. I don't see what practical difference the assignment to Google will make. Without using the words "equality", "between equals" and "sharecropper", can you give an example of something you or I will not be able to do with the code that you or I would have been able to do if the copyright had remained with the contributors?

brandmeyer 6y ago
Linux itself has never been a GNU project and has never required copyright assignment. It is the combination of features (retain ownership and GPL) together that has enabled collaboration in Linux.
- hollerith 6y ago
  Are you saying that collaboration on Gnu Compiler Collection, binutils, bash, bison, CLISP, coreutils, etc, has been inhibited by the requirement for copyright assignment to the FSF?
  - brandmeyer 6y ago
    There's a big difference between GNU and Linux in terms of their collaboration. With the exception of GCC, most of the utilities you named have been maintained by a very small group of people. GCC itself has definitely been inhibited by the copyright assignment. There have been a few different ports that were not upstreamed specifically because of the CLA. AVR32 and C6000 come to mind off the top of my head.
    - hollerith 6y ago
      As far as I am aware, the only times contributions were not incorporated were because the work was done by under the terms of an employment contract with the result that the employer ended up owning the copyright, then the employer decided not to sign the CLA. Can you think of a single instance in which code written by an individual contributor not bound by an employment contract was prevented from being incorporated into a project that required copyright be assigned to a central entity? I have read multiple accounts of open-source contributors who have successfully negotiated when being hired that copyright to any code written on their own time on the own hardware will remain with them (so as not to complicate their contributions to open-source projects).
      - jononor 6y ago
        That is a significant limitation. A considerable amount of open source software is written while people are employed, as part of their work.
        hollerith 6y ago
        Sure, but no open-source project wants contributions by contributors who do not legally own the code because in that case the actual owner of the code can petition the court to issue an injuction on the project preventing further distribution of the code till the offending code is removed from the project. (They can also sue any user of the project for damages.) Wikipedia has to worry about the same thing, BTW: contributors who upload text whose copyright is owned by some entity who never consented to the upload, and they have policies in procedures in place to correct it when it happens. It's not like CLA's are the only obstacle to employees contributing to the open-source projects. In fact, you might say that the main purpose of a CLA is to surface copyright-ownership problems early, when the cost of correcting them is lower.
diegocg 6y ago
The FSF is a non profit organisation, Google is one of the biggest corporations. There is a big difference.
- judge2020 6y ago
  Doesn't invalidate the original post if you were to replace google with FSF. You might be fine granting ownership to the FSF, but not everyone is.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
CogitoCogito 6y ago
If I want to distribute derivative works of the Linux kernel, I need to release those works to all. My competitors can take advantage of this, but in the end they are bound by similar rules. This produces a feedback loop in which contributions back may be used by everyone under pretty much equal terms. If you assign your copyright to Google, they may make use of those changes and integrate them into further development and then _not_ release those changes or release those changes under another license. Do you see the practical difference now?
- hollerith 6y ago
  You are describing the difference between the GPL and BSD-like licenses. You have not said anything about the difference between a BSD-like license with copyright remaining with the contributors versus BSD-like license with copyright assigned to Google.
  - CogitoCogito 6y ago
    Well if I have the copyright I can straight up sell software based upon it without telling people you made it. Or I can release your code or derivatives of it under a different license while privately selling it under other licenses for profit. If these things don't bother you, then feel free to contribute. In fact, what I'm trying to understand exactly is if I assume that you are correct that there is no difference, then why would Google require the contribution in the first place? edit: If this ( https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual https://cla.developers.google.com/about/google-individual ) is the CLA in question, then you additionally agree on a patent grant to Google and those those Google distributes it to. So if Samsung takes the code and distributes it to other customers those customers and Samsung are not covered by the same grant? Why is this all centered on Google? Why is not simply a general patent grant as part of the submission to anyone receiving the code?
    - derefr 6y ago
      > In fact, what I'm trying to understand exactly is if I assume that you are correct that there is no difference, then why would Google require the contribution in the first place? The difference isn't relevant 99% of the time, but it comes up if the maintainership of a work tries to re-license the work. Works without assigned ownership cannot practically be re-licensed, as you'd have to get individual consent from all owning parties. This came up a lot when GPLv3 was introduced — many projects wanted to migrate from GPLv2 to GPLv3, but couldn't, because they never acquired legal ownership of contributed code, and so didn't have the right to re-license the contributors' code.
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
> You used to not be able to contribute to most GNU projects (maybe you still can't) without assigning copyright ownership to the FSF. Even were that true today, the difference is that I basically trust the FSF.

abarth 6y ago

> Looks like you still cannot contribute without granting copyright ownership to Google That is not accurate. Fuchsia uses the standard Google CLA: "You do not surrender ownership of your contribution, and you do not give up any of your rights to use your contribution elsewhere." https://cla.developers.google.com/about https://cla.developers.google.com/about

brandmeyer 6y ago
There's a big difference between licensing code to the world under the terms of Apache 2.0, and licensing code to Google under whatever terms they feel like now or at any time in the future.
- dhodell 6y ago
  Is there? Apache 2.0 includes clauses for patent indemnification and allowing sub-licensing derived work.
- skybrian 6y ago
  I don't think it's an important difference. If you're doing open source at all, you're losing control over what's done with your code, including allowing it to be used by competitors and "bad guys" however you define that. See (5) and (6) in the open source definition: no discrimination against persons or groups, and no discrimination against fields of endeavor. If you're unwilling to relinquish control, no open source license is going to be good enough. At best you might scare some risk-adverse companies away from using it, but there are still going to be a lot of people you dislike who can use your software to nefarious ends.

trasz 6y ago

With BSD-style licenses there's still a strong incentive to share code. That's why permissively-licensed projects, from Node, to PostgreSQL, to FreeBSD, work. With GPL-style licenses, there's an incentive to avoid putting effort into development, and instead undercut other parties who did invest, and then had to share their code.

saghm 6y ago
> That's why permissively-licensed projects, from Node, to PostgreSQL, to FreeBSD, work. Sure, but there are plenty of copyleft-licensed projects that also work? This isn't a very convincing argument.
- trasz 6y ago
  Sure, both work. It's a counter-argument to the claim that GPL is somehow superior.