3 ms·

I don't think you can set aside universities when you talk about open source - they were the original drivers in this field, and continue to be heavily involved

I don't think you can set aside universities when you talk about open source - they were the original drivers in this field, and continue to be heavily involved. The biggest difference is probably that most of the software written at a university is done by faculty and grad students and isn't work for hire, so for someone like me there's no reason to ever ask my employer to execute a CLA. But the same problems arise in most other organizations - it's hard enough to get a legal department to sign essential things needed to keep a business running, never mind signing some random CLA for a project they haven't heard of. Finally, your view seems oriented to pseudo-open source projects where someone slapped an open source license on code written at a single company and wants to keep control of that code within the company, rather than open projects spanning multiple organizations, run by the developers and architects of the code.

tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago
This feels like…one degree away from a no true Scotsman argument.
- bkor 3y ago
  Why? Getting someone so sign off on a CLA is a huge burden. There are loads of companies that have huge software development teams but the company is NOT an IT company. Legal isn't setup to figure out a CLA. At least that's in my experience. It's significantly easier to not contribute back than spend ages trying to involve legal. Sort of like a barrier to entry, though maybe called a barrier to contribute.
bruce511 3y ago
Yeah, I would argue the projects requiring a CLA are exactly as you described - companies that want to keep specific future options on the table. OSS covers a wide spectrum of projects, from the Linux Kernel at the one end, to Frank's recent half-assed attempt at a CSS editor. Clearly no statement is going to cover everything. The set of projects that require a CLA, and the set of pseudo OSS projects has a high degree of overlap.

tmpX7dMeXU 3y ago

This feels like…one degree away from a no true Scotsman argument.

bkor 3y ago
Why? Getting someone so sign off on a CLA is a huge burden. There are loads of companies that have huge software development teams but the company is NOT an IT company. Legal isn't setup to figure out a CLA. At least that's in my experience. It's significantly easier to not contribute back than spend ages trying to involve legal. Sort of like a barrier to entry, though maybe called a barrier to contribute.

bruce511 3y ago

Yeah, I would argue the projects requiring a CLA are exactly as you described - companies that want to keep specific future options on the table. OSS covers a wide spectrum of projects, from the Linux Kernel at the one end, to Frank's recent half-assed attempt at a CSS editor. Clearly no statement is going to cover everything. The set of projects that require a CLA, and the set of pseudo OSS projects has a high degree of overlap.