4 ms·

Isn't this very common for large projects? Solves the future problem of potential relicensing, doesn't it? Of having to track down potentially 10's of thousands

Isn't this very common for large projects? Solves the future problem of potential relicensing, doesn't it? Of having to track down potentially 10's of thousands of contributors that may be hard to find (or even dead) to get their consent?

matheusmoreira 5y ago
> Solves the future problem of potential relicensing, doesn't it? Yeah, by giving the foundation all the power it needs to relicense it however it wants. > Of having to track down potentially 10's of thousands of contributors that may be hard to find (or even dead) to get their consent? That's the ideal situation. Make the copyright stuff so hard no one will ever bother trying to take over a project. Linux kernel does this. It will never be licensed as anything other than GPLv2 because it's virtually impossible to obtain the consent of all developers who ever contributed to it. The more Linux grows, the more people contribute to it, the stronger this protection becomes.
- ChrisLomont 5y ago
  >Make the copyright stuff so hard no one will ever bother trying to take over a project. Also means if the license ever loses a legal case then the project will always be susceptible to that flaw since it cannot be corrected. Think of a license as code. It currently works, but tomorrow you may find a serious bug, or, in the case of law, laws change outside the project, making a serious bug. Now you cannot ever fix it. And, in common cases, it protects the project from contributors wishing to remove their contribution later, breaking the project. Linus could get a brain tumor and decide to revoke his contributions to the Linux kernel. Or his heirs could do it, since by law they get his copyrights, including all the code he ever contributed. Guess what that would do. Or any contributor to Linux can do it. 10,000 legal minefields is not a good way to run a project.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    Yeah, I assumed Linux developers wouldn't actually want to hurt the project they contributed their code to. Linux is not protected from that. Another example: one day the copyright protection of Linux code is going to run out. That'll probably be a very fun day. > 10,000 legal minefields is not a good way to run a project. Agreed. Honestly I think these licenses shouldn't even exist to begin with. Copyright needs to be abolished.
throwaway19937 5y ago
One issue that CLAs solve is the problem of copyright termination after the death of the author; see (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203). DannyBee is an open source lawyer, his comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148727) gives some other advantages of CLAs.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> Solves the future problem of potential relicensing, doesn't it? Yeah, by giving the foundation all the power it needs to relicense it however it wants. > Of having to track down potentially 10's of thousands of contributors that may be hard to find (or even dead) to get their consent? That's the ideal situation. Make the copyright stuff so hard no one will ever bother trying to take over a project. Linux kernel does this. It will never be licensed as anything other than GPLv2 because it's virtually impossible to obtain the consent of all developers who ever contributed to it. The more Linux grows, the more people contribute to it, the stronger this protection becomes.

ChrisLomont 5y ago
>Make the copyright stuff so hard no one will ever bother trying to take over a project. Also means if the license ever loses a legal case then the project will always be susceptible to that flaw since it cannot be corrected. Think of a license as code. It currently works, but tomorrow you may find a serious bug, or, in the case of law, laws change outside the project, making a serious bug. Now you cannot ever fix it. And, in common cases, it protects the project from contributors wishing to remove their contribution later, breaking the project. Linus could get a brain tumor and decide to revoke his contributions to the Linux kernel. Or his heirs could do it, since by law they get his copyrights, including all the code he ever contributed. Guess what that would do. Or any contributor to Linux can do it. 10,000 legal minefields is not a good way to run a project.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Yeah, I assumed Linux developers wouldn't actually want to hurt the project they contributed their code to. Linux is not protected from that. Another example: one day the copyright protection of Linux code is going to run out. That'll probably be a very fun day. > 10,000 legal minefields is not a good way to run a project. Agreed. Honestly I think these licenses shouldn't even exist to begin with. Copyright needs to be abolished.

throwaway19937 5y ago

One issue that CLAs solve is the problem of copyright termination after the death of the author; see (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/203). DannyBee is an open source lawyer, his comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18148727) gives some other advantages of CLAs.