CLA gives them total ownership of the code (all contributors are surrendering their copyright), and allows them to change license at any point in time, including making it closed source.
If you’re contributing code to a project with CLA you’re not contributing to Open Source, you’re working for a company for free.
Yes, thanks for pointing it out. As long as it is some organization that can’t be bought it should be fine. I didn’t included that because it makes my response more confusing.
Essentially CLA gives the entire copyright to specific entity and that entity in case of FSF it likely could use it for fighting violations, while some startup likely intends to change license when their product gets more popular to cash out on it (for example what Hashicorp did recently before selling to IBM)
This is not “perfect is enemy of good” it would be if I was arguing about MIT vs GPL etc.
By signing CLA you’re surrendering copyright to the company and this allows them do do whatever they wish with your contribution, including switching back to closed source.
Hashicorp was able to change license of their products exactly thanks to CLA.
This is bullshit.
Until I see an OSI approved license, it’s not open source.
I am so sick of these rubbish licensing efforts calling themselves Open Souce. Fair code is a new atrocity.
There is no repository link. There is no open source code.
The Winamp announcement linked to in the article never says “Open source”, that’s the article writer not understanding the difference.
Tbf,
sounds already close to open-source, though it isn’t necessarily, as the licence that is used matters.
Even CLA + GPL/MIT would suffice
I disagree.
CLA gives them total ownership of the code (all contributors are surrendering their copyright), and allows them to change license at any point in time, including making it closed source.
If you’re contributing code to a project with CLA you’re not contributing to Open Source, you’re working for a company for free.
A CLA is okay if and only if the copyright is being assigned to the Free Software Foundation or a similarly reputable nonprofit.
Yes, thanks for pointing it out. As long as it is some organization that can’t be bought it should be fine. I didn’t included that because it makes my response more confusing.
Essentially CLA gives the entire copyright to specific entity and that entity in case of FSF it likely could use it for fighting violations, while some startup likely intends to change license when their product gets more popular to cash out on it (for example what Hashicorp did recently before selling to IBM)
AFAIK that’s already the deal. So the proposal is a improvement of the deal. Also don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
This is not “perfect is enemy of good” it would be if I was arguing about MIT vs GPL etc.
By signing CLA you’re surrendering copyright to the company and this allows them do do whatever they wish with your contribution, including switching back to closed source.
Hashicorp was able to change license of their products exactly thanks to CLA.
https://about.winamp.com/press/article/winamp-open-source-code This page says they aren’t actually making the code open source until September 24, 2024, a date that has not happened yet…