Re: Contributor Clauses in Licenses

--===============4759607943928880371==
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

If the contribution is a (C) derivative, I'm not sure I'm seeing why 
this is an issue. All OS licenses (other than the -0 ones) impose 
conditions on derivatives.

If the contribution is not a derivative, they're merely articulating the 
conditions under which a contribution would be accepted by the project 
maintainers, *not* a condition on how the non-derivative work can 
otherwise be used. Again, I don't see how that is an issue.

The bigger problem with these combined outbound license+inbound cla 
documents is they often attempt to impose non-reciprocal conditions -- 
i.e., outbound license has conditions -- attribution, source, etc., but 
inbound CLA imposes no conditions on the project maintainers w/r/t the 
submitted contributions. That makes the license discriminatory.

One could solve this problem by simply saying license in=license out but 
you don't need a separate clause in a license to do that.

On 12/8/2025 1:57 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> On 12/8/25 1:46 PM, David Woolley wrote:
>>> 1. Unless enforced by some other mechanism (CLA, repository TOS, 
>>> etc.), it is not automatically true that contributions are under the 
>>> license in the first place;
>>
>> CLAs aren't licences to the contributor, but rather a licence from 
>> the contributor to the initial developer, often allowing the initial 
>> developer to use the contributions outside of open source licensing.  
>> As such I don't see how they can be used to constrain someone 
>> creating modifications to the code.
>
> Other way around.  The outgoing license is trying to put conditions on 
> how you contribute to the upstream project.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address.
>
> License-discuss mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org


--===============4759607943928880371==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: inline

X19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX19fX18KVGhlIG9waW5p
b25zIGV4cHJlc3NlZCBpbiB0aGlzIGVtYWlsIGFyZSB0aG9zZSBvZiB0aGUgc2VuZGVyIGFuZCBu
b3QgbmVjZXNzYXJpbHkgdGhvc2Ugb2YgdGhlIE9wZW4gU291cmNlIEluaXRpYXRpdmUuIE9mZmlj
aWFsIHN0YXRlbWVudHMgYnkgdGhlIE9wZW4gU291cmNlIEluaXRpYXRpdmUgd2lsbCBiZSBzZW50
IGZyb20gYW4gb3BlbnNvdXJjZS5vcmcgZW1haWwgYWRkcmVzcy4KCkxpY2Vuc2UtZGlzY3VzcyBt
YWlsaW5nIGxpc3QKTGljZW5zZS1kaXNjdXNzQGxpc3RzLm9wZW5zb3VyY2Uub3JnCmh0dHA6Ly9s
aXN0cy5vcGVuc291cmNlLm9yZy9tYWlsbWFuL2xpc3RpbmZvL2xpY2Vuc2UtZGlzY3Vzc19saXN0
cy5vcGVuc291cmNlLm9yZwo=

--===============4759607943928880371==--