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Can someone explain how this sudden change of license is even possible (legally)? I mean, what if I contributed to the project back when it was Apache licensed

by haspok 4y ago

Can someone explain how this sudden change of license is even possible (legally)? I mean, what if I contributed to the project back when it was Apache licensed, in good faith that my changes would be freely available (as in free beer)? Now they decide that they ask money for something that includes my contribution? Don't they have to ask for the contributors permissions to be able to do that? (Just a hypothetical example, I am not an Akka contributor.)

fatherzine 4y ago
[Not a lawyer] That's what CLAs are for. As a prerequisite of having your PR accepted, you grant the mothership corporate entity the rights to do whatever they want with your contribution, including asking money. https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/cla https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/cla https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com
- gregwebs 4y ago
  To elaborate on this, a CTA would directly transfer the contribution of the copyright to the project. A CLA is much more common than a CTA. A CLA is more complicated: the submitter maintains the copyright, but a sublicense is granted to the project. That sublicense grants rights similar to having copyright, one of them being the ability to relicense. It is possible for the CLA sublicensing agreement to restrict the ability to relicense, but most do not do that.
NobodyNada 4y ago
Apache 2.0 is a permissive license, so if you contributed to the project under the Apache license you gave them permission to use your code in closed-source projects (as long as they follow the terms of the license, such as giving you credit). Of course, they can't un-license code that they've already released, but they can re-release the old code under a new license, and ship all new code under that new license going forward.
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
I'm not a lawyer and I haven't read the Apache license lately, but I think it's a permissive enough license that they probably can sub/relicense it as long as they keep everybody's copyright notices intact. That is, effectively just leave all the code under the Apache license but also add additional terms and conditions because it doesn't prohibit that. This is in sharp contrast to, say, GPL, which would have prevented such a maneuver. (Or, as a sibling, notes, if they required a CLA then they legitimately have the ability to relicense everything at will.)
- haspok 4y ago
  Yeah, in the meantime I did find the word "sublicense" in section "2. Grant of Copyright License" of the original text. Fair enough.

by haspok 4y ago

fatherzine 4y ago

[Not a lawyer] That's what CLAs are for. As a prerequisite of having your PR accepted, you grant the mothership corporate entity the rights to do whatever they want with your contribution, including asking money. https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/cla https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/cla https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com

gregwebs 4y ago
To elaborate on this, a CTA would directly transfer the contribution of the copyright to the project. A CLA is much more common than a CTA. A CLA is more complicated: the submitter maintains the copyright, but a sublicense is granted to the project. That sublicense grants rights similar to having copyright, one of them being the ability to relicense. It is possible for the CLA sublicensing agreement to restrict the ability to relicense, but most do not do that.

NobodyNada 4y ago

Apache 2.0 is a permissive license, so if you contributed to the project under the Apache license you gave them permission to use your code in closed-source projects (as long as they follow the terms of the license, such as giving you credit). Of course, they can't un-license code that they've already released, but they can re-release the old code under a new license, and ship all new code under that new license going forward.

yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago

I'm not a lawyer and I haven't read the Apache license lately, but I think it's a permissive enough license that they probably can sub/relicense it as long as they keep everybody's copyright notices intact. That is, effectively just leave all the code under the Apache license but also add additional terms and conditions because it doesn't prohibit that. This is in sharp contrast to, say, GPL, which would have prevented such a maneuver. (Or, as a sibling, notes, if they required a CLA then they legitimately have the ability to relicense everything at will.)

haspok 4y ago
Yeah, in the meantime I did find the word "sublicense" in section "2. Grant of Copyright License" of the original text. Fair enough.