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As they're releasing the code under Apache 2.0 anyway, what is the motivation for having contributors sign an additional CLA? I'd much rather see them use a Co
by th0br0 12y ago
As they're releasing the code under Apache 2.0 anyway, what is the motivation for having contributors sign an additional CLA?
I'd much rather see them use a Contributor License Agreement (e.g. the Harmony ones that Canonical uses [1]) than requiring the contributors to assign their rights to the source code (which he or she might not be able to do legally).
[1] http://harmonyagreements.org http://harmonyagreements.org
- pyre 12y agoThose contributors contributed when it was not under the Apache license. They either need to get all rights assigned to them (DataStax) and then they can relicense it under Apache, or they need to get all contributors to agree to relicense under Apache. Looks like they are taking option 1 because it will make relicensing less of a headache in the future if it becomes necessary.
- th0br0 12y agoAh, thanks. That part was missing from the issue.
- emddudley 12y agoAn opposing viewpoint on CLAs: Why Your Project Doesn't Need a Contributor Licensing Agreement [0] (by Bradley M. Kuhn of the Software Freedom Conservancy) Essentially he argues that all a project needs is an "inbound=outbound" rule for contributions, in that any contributor agrees to license their code to the project under the same license as the project. This protects the contributor's interests while still ensuring that the project has the right to use the code. [0] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/jun/09/do-not-need-cla/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/jun/09/do-not-need-cla/