31 ms·

Stallman was right. When will the developer community learn not to contribute to these projects with awful CLAs. The rug has been pulled.

pabs3 11mo ago
MinIO doesn't seem to have had a CLA though?
- EgoIncarnate 11mo ago
  MinIO had a de facto CLA. MinIO required contributors to license their code to the project maintainers (only) under Apache 2. Not as bad as copyright assignment, but still asymmetric (they can relicense for commercial use, but you only get AGPL). https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQU...
  - woooooo 11mo ago
    Isn't that standard protective boilerplate so that they cant get rugpulled themselves on a contribution, 2 years later? I thought the ASF had something similar.
    - EgoIncarnate 11mo ago
      Requiring AGPL on the contribution would also prevent a rugpull. MinIO went beyond that. The wording gives an Apache license only to MinIO, not to people who use it. So MinIO can relicense the the contributor code under a commercially viable license, but no one else can. Everyone else will only have access to the contribution under AGPL as part of the whole project.
      - woooooo 11mo ago
        Ah I didnt realize there were 2 different licenses at play, yeah that's a little sus.
  - cuu508 11mo ago
    This wording was added in the template in August 2023. What's the licensing situation for community contributions before then?
    - EgoIncarnate 11mo ago
      Presumably they've either gotten explicit permission after the fact, rewritten in the commerical product, or the contribution was too minor to be a concern. I don't think they could have put the amount of though needed to ensure they benefit from contributions in a way no one else can, and then also be unaware of license issues with any possible AGPL only contributions.
creatonez 11mo ago
Except... the FSF is actually on the extreme opposite end of this issue. They do formal copyright assignment from the GNU contributors to the FSF. This way, they have a centralized final say on enforcement that is resistant to copyleft trolls, but it ultimately allows the theoretical possibility of a rugpull.
- reedciccio 11mo ago
  The FSF can't pull the rug because of its bylaws
dzogchen 11mo ago
Where does Stallman say anything about CLAs?

pabs3 11mo ago

MinIO doesn't seem to have had a CLA though?

EgoIncarnate 11mo ago
MinIO had a de facto CLA. MinIO required contributors to license their code to the project maintainers (only) under Apache 2. Not as bad as copyright assignment, but still asymmetric (they can relicense for commercial use, but you only get AGPL). https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQU...
- woooooo 11mo ago
  Isn't that standard protective boilerplate so that they cant get rugpulled themselves on a contribution, 2 years later? I thought the ASF had something similar.
  - EgoIncarnate 11mo ago
    Requiring AGPL on the contribution would also prevent a rugpull. MinIO went beyond that. The wording gives an Apache license only to MinIO, not to people who use it. So MinIO can relicense the the contributor code under a commercially viable license, but no one else can. Everyone else will only have access to the contribution under AGPL as part of the whole project.
    - woooooo 11mo ago
      Ah I didnt realize there were 2 different licenses at play, yeah that's a little sus.
- cuu508 11mo ago
  This wording was added in the template in August 2023. What's the licensing situation for community contributions before then?
  - EgoIncarnate 11mo ago
    Presumably they've either gotten explicit permission after the fact, rewritten in the commerical product, or the contribution was too minor to be a concern. I don't think they could have put the amount of though needed to ensure they benefit from contributions in a way no one else can, and then also be unaware of license issues with any possible AGPL only contributions.

creatonez 11mo ago

Except... the FSF is actually on the extreme opposite end of this issue. They do formal copyright assignment from the GNU contributors to the FSF. This way, they have a centralized final say on enforcement that is resistant to copyleft trolls, but it ultimately allows the theoretical possibility of a rugpull.

reedciccio 11mo ago
The FSF can't pull the rug because of its bylaws

dzogchen 11mo ago

Where does Stallman say anything about CLAs?