Hey open source contributors,
I’m looking for examples of license agreements from big open source projects.
What are, according to you, the best license agreements? What is an important thing to check before signing a license agreement? What would be your advice to an organization drafting a license agreement to contribute to an #agpl3 project?
Thanks for sharing my question. This is something I will probably add in my open source teaching at university.
@ploum @albertcardona I don't think we should have contributor license agreements, which seem to exist only to ensure that the (often corporate) steward of the project can unilaterally change to a non-free license in the future. Having copyright diffused among all the contributors (many of whom would be unreachable in the future) makes this completely impossible, and this is a feature rather than a bug.
@jonmsterling @ploum @albertcardona
Totally agree.
Plus a CLA can be a hell to manage for the organization (maintaining and updating the list of all corporate and individual contributors)
And from the contributor pov, if only one clause is a stopper, he / she would be stuck between the willingness to contribute and the rejection of one small unacceptable condition.
@benoitb @jonmsterling @albertcardona : I believe that there are many cases where CLA could be beneficial for the project on a long term scale (what if, for example, you wanted to switch from GPL to AGPL because it suddenly become available over a network?)
That’s why I’m investigating the subject.
@ploum @benoitb @albertcardona This is not true: you don't have to switch from GPL to AGPL to make your software available over a network.
@jonmsterling @benoitb @albertcardona : you have to if you want to give rights to the users acceding your software through the network. (that’s why the AGPL was created)
@ploum @benoitb @albertcardona I agree with you that it is good to move toward stricter licenses that plug holes in the GPL. But if the pathway involves giving carte blanche to an entity that may only *presently* be committed to user freedom, I think it introduces a higher level of risk than is worthwhile.