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If I contribute to an AGPL project and license my changes back to you under AGPL, that means you can't one day decide to start selling my changes together with

by A1kmm 3y ago

If I contribute to an AGPL project and license my changes back to you under AGPL, that means you can't one day decide to start selling my changes together with a closed-source module; the copyleft works to protect me against you deciding to take my changes closed-source, not just to protect the original maintainer from that. If I contribute to an AGPL project and sign a CLA that assigns copyright to you, you might announce tomorrow that you are going to run off with my contribution and start only releasing new versions under a non-FOSS licence. This fear applies particularly if you are a for-profit company who might one day lose your desire to do FOSS. This exact thing, in fact (other than the AGPL part anyway) happened recently with just about every Hashicorp project - so it is not just some hypothetical fear. I would not contribute (unless I was being paid) to someone else's project unless there was no CLA (inbound = outbound licensing), or they were a not-for-profit with appropriate constitutional limitations on profit-seeking behaviour.

pydry 3y ago
>If I contribute to an AGPL project and sign a CLA that assigns copyright to you, you might announce tomorrow that you are going to run off with my contribution and start only releasing new versions under a non-FOSS licence. That is generally the point of a CLA. If that bothers you you're supposed to not contribute and not sign. The up side is that that revenue model might mean that they can pay people to do that work instead of relying upon drive by pull requests and maintainers dedicating their time for free. Back in the early days of open source I saw a lot of people get mad at viral licensing because it did exactly what it was supposed to. There was some weird sort of entitlement complex going on where people felt entitled not only to use open source but that it was somehow unfair that they couldn't also violate the terms and conditions of using it. I was similarly perplexed by the reaction back then too.
bmitc 3y ago
You're just explaining what a CLA does. There's pros and cons toward one. I for one don't see the problem. Yes, the maintainers retain control, and that can be good or bad. But contributors getting a portion of control can also be good or bad. One way is not strictly better or worse than the other. But if a project that has a CLA also has a currently permissive license, then take the supposedly open source route and fork it.

by A1kmm 3y ago

pydry 3y ago

>If I contribute to an AGPL project and sign a CLA that assigns copyright to you, you might announce tomorrow that you are going to run off with my contribution and start only releasing new versions under a non-FOSS licence. That is generally the point of a CLA. If that bothers you you're supposed to not contribute and not sign. The up side is that that revenue model might mean that they can pay people to do that work instead of relying upon drive by pull requests and maintainers dedicating their time for free. Back in the early days of open source I saw a lot of people get mad at viral licensing because it did exactly what it was supposed to. There was some weird sort of entitlement complex going on where people felt entitled not only to use open source but that it was somehow unfair that they couldn't also violate the terms and conditions of using it. I was similarly perplexed by the reaction back then too.

bmitc 3y ago

You're just explaining what a CLA does. There's pros and cons toward one. I for one don't see the problem. Yes, the maintainers retain control, and that can be good or bad. But contributors getting a portion of control can also be good or bad. One way is not strictly better or worse than the other. But if a project that has a CLA also has a currently permissive license, then take the supposedly open source route and fork it.