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As someone who would love to contribute: AGPL means nothing if I have to sign a CLA that gives you the ability to switch licenses on a whim. You will have much

by mqus 3y ago

As someone who would love to contribute: AGPL means nothing if I have to sign a CLA that gives you the ability to switch licenses on a whim. You will have much less contributors for this reason alone, while also scaring away customers.

mcny 3y ago
> As someone who would love to contribute: AGPL means nothing if I have to sign a CLA that gives you the ability to switch licenses on a whim. You will have much less contributors for this reason alone, while also scaring away customers. but then AGPL is not the problem, CLA is, right?
hedora 3y ago
Nothing stops you from forking it. I also dislike CLAs from a developer perspective, but I understand why companies require them. In particular, the CLA is likely going to make investors happy, and the investors pay the bills, at least initially. If the investors eventually stop paying the bills (or if the set of people that want to contribute is larger than the set of people the investors will pay), then fork it. This seems like a win-win, in that developers win because they get Free tools, and in that developers win because the get paid well to develop open source software.
- intheleantime 3y ago
  Not just investors. I had long conversations with legal about that to better understand why it is necessary. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it either but here is the deal: - I want this project to be a success (and open source) - To make it a success I need to live - To live I need to pay for food Commercialization in OSS is pretty straight forward as there aren't many options: - Support, managed hosting, paid plugins/features, sponsors. With the exception of Sponsors, all of these require a number of changes to code and infrastructure that should not be public and this would not be possible without a CLA. Ergo: CLA -> OSS Developer gets to live. Yes, it does open the door to license changes and that is a whole other story. But what it boils down to is that funding an OSS project without a CLA is basically impossible.

by mqus 3y ago

mcny 3y ago

> As someone who would love to contribute: AGPL means nothing if I have to sign a CLA that gives you the ability to switch licenses on a whim. You will have much less contributors for this reason alone, while also scaring away customers. but then AGPL is not the problem, CLA is, right?

hedora 3y ago

Nothing stops you from forking it. I also dislike CLAs from a developer perspective, but I understand why companies require them. In particular, the CLA is likely going to make investors happy, and the investors pay the bills, at least initially. If the investors eventually stop paying the bills (or if the set of people that want to contribute is larger than the set of people the investors will pay), then fork it. This seems like a win-win, in that developers win because they get Free tools, and in that developers win because the get paid well to develop open source software.

intheleantime 3y ago
Not just investors. I had long conversations with legal about that to better understand why it is necessary. Don't get me wrong, I don't like it either but here is the deal: - I want this project to be a success (and open source) - To make it a success I need to live - To live I need to pay for food Commercialization in OSS is pretty straight forward as there aren't many options: - Support, managed hosting, paid plugins/features, sponsors. With the exception of Sponsors, all of these require a number of changes to code and infrastructure that should not be public and this would not be possible without a CLA. Ergo: CLA -> OSS Developer gets to live. Yes, it does open the door to license changes and that is a whole other story. But what it boils down to is that funding an OSS project without a CLA is basically impossible.