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I think that the developer can demand a withdrawal of their contribution, though I don't know what happens to the code that's already published under a FOSS lic
by goku12 3y ago
I think that the developer can demand a withdrawal of their contribution, though I don't know what happens to the code that's already published under a FOSS license. Regardless, many projects including the Linux kernel require the developer to sign off their contributions under the terms of the 'developer certificate of origin' [1]. While the developer retains the copyright to the contribution under DCO, they acknowledge that it will be distributed in perpetuity under the original license. So, retracting the contribution may not be an option.
[1] https://developercertificate.org/ https://developercertificate.org/
- Macha 3y agoThe main purpose of a DCO is to take the portion of a CLA that guarantees the developer actually has a right to license the code under the project's license, as it's something that some users worry about using the software without. Basically so if someone copies some code from one of the Windows leaks into Linux and Microsoft comes to sue the Linux Foundation over it, they can point to it and say "we had legal sign off they had the right to license this code, please sue them instead". In terms of irrevocability, the DCO is not that different from most open source licenses who themselves claim to be perpetual. The arguments for exceptions to that being true all either apply to e.g. both the GPL and the DCO, or to neither. Generally the consensus is that an irrevocable license grant means irrevocable, though there are some concerns about examples set by e.g. the precedent that lets artists claw back rights from record labels after 30 years.
- CRConrad 3y ago> I think that the developer can demand a withdrawal of their contribution I don't. And neither do you, judging from your last sentence: > So, retracting the contribution may not be an option. So what did you mean by the first one?