4 ms·

yes, but it's not always malicious. one example is to dual license the code. for example, Qt is available under GPL (LGPL?) and has a CLA that allows them to co

by n42 3y ago

yes, but it's not always malicious. one example is to dual license the code. for example, Qt is available under GPL (LGPL?) and has a CLA that allows them to commercially license your contributions to businesses. a good CLA in this instance would guarantee you that your code cannot be relicensed exclusively away from GPL. the software is still free as in freedom, but the organization can fund itself by courting businesses that would not touch GPL software.

lars_francke 3y ago
Another example is OpenStreetMap which changed its license because we learned that the old one wasn't adequate for the purpose intended. We have no idea how today's licenses will be challenged in the future and I believe it's a good practice to keep a door open to being able to change the license going forward. That it's not done maliciously is a purpose for foundations which serve as trust anchors.
- freedomben 3y ago
  that's an interesting point, thanks. I'm still skeptical of a CLA for such a project since a ton (currently all) of the copyright is held by Hashicorp meaning they would have to consent to the future license change as well, regardless of the CLA or foundation membership. In general I think that makes a point for a CLA, but in this case I don't think it does.
riku_iki 3y ago
> Qt is available under GPL (LGPL?) and has a CLA that allows them to commercially license your contributions to businesses. but that's exactly the case which happened in case of Hashi, so CLA allowed them to continue working on commercial product only, with all 3p contributions being under their proprietary license.
- detaro 3y ago
  Qt's situation is different, since they have contractual obligations to continue releasing under (L)GPL - failure to do so allows the KDE Project to release Qt under MIT.

4 ms·

yes, but it's not always malicious. one example is to dual license the code. for example, Qt is available under GPL (LGPL?) and has a CLA that allows them to co

by n42 3y ago

lars_francke 3y ago
Another example is OpenStreetMap which changed its license because we learned that the old one wasn't adequate for the purpose intended. We have no idea how today's licenses will be challenged in the future and I believe it's a good practice to keep a door open to being able to change the license going forward. That it's not done maliciously is a purpose for foundations which serve as trust anchors.
- freedomben 3y ago
  that's an interesting point, thanks. I'm still skeptical of a CLA for such a project since a ton (currently all) of the copyright is held by Hashicorp meaning they would have to consent to the future license change as well, regardless of the CLA or foundation membership. In general I think that makes a point for a CLA, but in this case I don't think it does.
riku_iki 3y ago
> Qt is available under GPL (LGPL?) and has a CLA that allows them to commercially license your contributions to businesses. but that's exactly the case which happened in case of Hashi, so CLA allowed them to continue working on commercial product only, with all 3p contributions being under their proprietary license.
- detaro 3y ago
  Qt's situation is different, since they have contractual obligations to continue releasing under (L)GPL - failure to do so allows the KDE Project to release Qt under MIT.