CLA discussion - James Bottomley's blog post today

CLA discussion - James Bottomley's blog post today

[Michael.E.Brown]

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https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/gpl-as-the-best-licence-governance-and-philosophy/


A very timely article from James Bottomley!? He addresses CLAs and provides a very compelling argument against them, rooted in equity.

"Further, the IP rights tend to be a focus for corporations, so simply joining the controlling entity (or taking a licence from it) instead of actually contributing to the project can become an end goal, thus weakening the technical contributions to the project and breaking the link with end users."


Is there a danger of this happening on this project?

--

Michael

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Re: CLA discussion - James Bottomley's blog post today

[Stewart Smith]

Michael.E.Brown@dell.com writes:
> https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/gpl-as-the-best-licence-governance-and-philosophy/
>
>
> A very timely article from James Bottomley!? He addresses CLAs and
> provides a very compelling argument against them, rooted in equity.
>
> "Further, the IP rights tend to be a focus for corporations, so simply
> joining the controlling entity (or taking a licence from it) instead
> of actually contributing to the project can become an end goal, thus
> weakening the technical contributions to the project and breaking the
> link with end users."

One of the big arguments is that it increases the amount of work you
have to go through to contribute to a project.

It's probably the same for you, but if for us, if there's a CLA you have
to sign, you get to go speak with legal. *NOBODY* wants to go speak with legal.

> Is there a danger of this happening on this project?

I would dearly hope not. A number of us would actively fight it.

-- 
Stewart Smith
OPAL Architect, IBM.