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.
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.