[Interest] Contributor agreement rundown

[BRM]

Just FYI -

FSF requires the signing of a CLA that gives them nearly the same authority for any GNU projects. They could theoretically change the license of all GNU GPL/LGPL projects they run to a 100% proprietary license without any recourse from the developers involved (they signed the CLA). However, practically speaking they'll never do anything other than update to a new version of the GPL/LGPL.
 

The Linux Kernel doesn't have a direct CLA; but you do have to sign a bunch of stuff with every commit you make or it won't be accepted. Fortunately, that's built into git so its easily managed. This was done in response to the SCO vs. the World litigation - to ensure every commit was legally provided, and a tracking of it to prove it.


Apache Software Foundation requires a CLA as well if you want to commit to any ASF project (e.g. OpenOffice, HTTPd, Subversion, etc.).


That is to say, many mature open source organizations and projects that are well respected in the community use a CLA to protect themselves and their ability to update licenses to address concerns that come up.
As others have said, it's a matter of being practical (pragmatic, realistic, etc.) over fundamental.

For Qt, it also preserves the ability for the commercial version which, as others have pointed out, has numerous benefits for the community, and the protection of the Free Qt Foundation as well.

$0.02

Ben



----- Original Message -----
> From: Nikos Chantziaras <realnc at gmail.com>
> To: interest at qt-project.org
> Cc: 
> Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:16 PM
> Subject: Re: [Interest] Contributor agreement rundown
> 
>T hen I'd say Qt was not suitable for "open governance" and 
> "open development".  Or not ready for it.
> 
> It's a funny situation right now.  I can use Qt like an open project, 
> but am not allowed to contribute to it in an open manner.  In a sense, 
> you must contribute more than you get.  That is unfair.
> 
> 
> On 19/04/12 00:10, BRM wrote:
>>  As pointed out, the main reason Qt Commercial customers buys the commercial 
> license is to not to have to worry about some of the LGPL requirements - namely 
> the ability to static link.
>>  Where I presently work has a commercial license. We static link a lot of 
> things. Could we dynamically link? Probably.
>>  We don't modify Qt itself (though we could); but we primarily don't 
> want to have to worry about the LGPL requirements either (e.g. providing object 
> files that can be relinked, etc.) - the company is too small to try to keep 
> track of all of that, nor are our customers really interested in it.
>> 
>>  So there are very big concerns that the Qt Commercial License alleviates.
>> 
>>  Ben
>> 
>> 
>>>  ________________________________
>>>  From: Nikos Chantziaras<realnc at gmail.com>
>>>  To: interest at qt-project.org
>>>  Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2012 4:05 PM
>>>  Subject: Re: [Interest] Contributor agreement rundown
>>> 
>>>  Again, that's not my issue.  LGPL allows commercial exploitation of 
> the
>>>  code.  The issue is taking open code and closing it, not allowing me
>>>  anymore to see how it was modified.  Being commercial has nothing to do
>>>  with this.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>  On 18/04/12 22:10, Jason H wrote:
>>>>  Really It's a question of comparative greed. If you don't 
> want your
>>>>  source in the commercial arena, where people can make money off of 
> you,
>>>>  well what's the value of that as compared to the value of the 
> code that
>>>>  you get for free, as well as the value you get by those commercial
>>>>  interests testing the code for you.
>>>> 
>>>>  Really the commercial interests (and this is a generalization) use 
> the
>>>>  commercial license to buy support. Their main concern is in having 
> Qt
>>>>  work, while not divulging their "competitive advantages" 
> which has
>>>>  nothing to do with the Qt toolkit (unless you count Qt as a whole). 
> I've
>>>>  worked at several (4) companies that used Qt and some commercially
>>>>  licensed Qt (3), and it wasn't about withholding patches or 
> profiting
>>>>  from your code. In all cases it was getting our existing code to 
> work
>>>>  with a GUI, and not having to publish our source. (Now moot due to 
> LGPL)
>>>> 
>>>>  Give some, get a lot.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>  *From:* Girish Ramakrishnan<girish at forwardbias.in>
>>>>  *To:* Bo Thorsen<bo at fioniasoftware.dk>
>>>>  *Cc:* interest at qt-project.org
>>>>  *Sent:* Wednesday, April 18, 2012 2:46 PM
>>>>  *Subject:* Re: [Interest] Contributor agreement rundown
>>>> 
>>>>  On Wed, Apr 18, 2012 at 2:01 AM, Bo Thorsen<bo at fioniasoftware.dk
>>>>  <mailto:bo at fioniasoftware.dk>>  wrote:
>>>>     >  Den 18-04-2012 10:33, John Layt skrev:
>>>>     >>  It is a trade-off, but not entirely one-way. They get 
> to sell your
>>>>  code, but
>>>>     >>  the money raised goes towards supporting Qt.
>>>>     >
>>>>     >  Actually, I see this more as a "yes, you can buy 
> commercial support". It
>>>>     >  closes one of the objections my customers have. Of course, 
> I usually
>>>>     >  convince them that I'm all the support they need :) 
> But it is a question
>>>>     >  I've heard so often with OSS software, and it's 
> one of the things
>>>>     >  non-OSS people are concerned about.
>>>>     >
>>>>     >  It doesn't look like Digia is using this to fund a lot 
> of new Qt
>>>>     >  development, but if they use it to support older Qt 
> versions, this is a
>>>>     >  great thing as well (assuming those patches go to the OSS 
> Qt). People
>>>>     >  paid on OSS projects should do the boring parts :)
>>>> 
>>>>  A quick update from qt-project: Digia may not be contributing a lot 
> to
>>>>  new development (yet) but they have been contributing quite a bit 
> (a
>>>>  quick grep shows ~1500 patches with them as author) to Qt4 and they
>>>>  have been doing a great job so far.
>>>> 
> 
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