CLAs mean that companies can take open source software and privatize it.

https://github.com/minio/minio?tab=readme-ov-file#maintenance-mode

@ariadne maintenance mode is new for the project. Gosh what on earth are they doing? What’s going on internally ☹️

@calebwoodbine what is going on is that they forked MinIO into MinIO AIStor which is proprietary

@ariadne related:

https://meshedinsights.com/2021/02/02/rights-ratchet/

@ariadne CLAs were the worst thing ever to happen to *GPL projects.

@colinstu CLAs are designed to undermine copyleft and flip it so that copyleft becomes a tool of oppression rather than liberation

@ariadne indeed.

@ariadne @colinstu
I'm someone who intends to set up a good faith CLA: do you think this idea is misguided? Any recommended reading material? (I mostly want to ensure that people don't contribute LLM-generated code, because that's a copyright mess I want no part of)

@dngrs @colinstu how would a CLA prevent contributions from LLM users? how would you actually know if the contribution came from an LLM?

@ariadne I'm thinking that while yes, people can always lie, they will be on record with their lie, and so it's their legal problem, not mine

@dngrs i would not use a CLA for this. CLA is only useful for imposing a power imbalance.

@dngrs @ariadne can a CoC not handle that?
CLAs have seemed almost exclusively used to turn copyleft lics into permissive ones.

@colinstu I'm pessimistic re the legal soundness of a CoC. But ultimately it's probably watertight enough to have a few mandatory checkboxes for anyone opening PRs.

@ariadne noted, thanks. Any suggestions where I can read up more on this?

@ariadne @dngrs @colinstu You might be looking for a DCO? It looks similar to a CLA, but instead of signing away rights, it only certifies that contributors have the right to share their contributions.

Also, some projects label their DCO as CLA 😞

@ariadne Worried this will happen to seaweedfs...

@rigrig sounds interesting, will look into it, thanks!

@ariadne @calebwoodbine

Isn't the theory that the community can now fork the code-base and run with it?

@glitzersachen @ariadne @calebwoodbine

Yes, but the CLA allowed them to steal a lot of code from contributors and keep it in their closed-source product. If they hadn't had that, they would not have been able to close the source and take this product commercial without replacing all the code from outside contributors.

@ariadne

Copyleft licenses mean that the owner has significantly more rights relating to use and distribution than anyone else.

CLAs mean that you remains effectively the owner when you take contributions. They make the problem worse, but they’re not the root problem.

@dngrs @ariadne @colinstu I was inspired by you to search info about CLAs badness.
This seems to be sensible, I'm sharing it to attract approval or criticism from experts (as I'm not in the sw dev business)
https://discourse.writefreesoftware.org/t/anti-cla-action-what-to-do-when-you-encounter-a-cla/226

@ariadne @colinstu lol, I saw that they didn't even have a CLA, but all contributions had to be licensed as apache https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md

modify boss's software? hey you need to contribute back!! boss modifies yours? that's his god-given right!

@dngrs @ariadne You use https://developercertificate.org/ for this

@david_chisnall
Untrue: Once you start accepting significant Copyleft contribution from others not willing to collaborate on a license change, the project will be effectively locked into the given license forever. If you wanted to change the license from that point on, you have to effectively rewrite most of the project from scratch to avoid the outside Copyleft code.

The copyleft asymmetry only strikes if:

1. You accepted no large outside contributions
2. You forced everyone to sign a CLA, effectively putting you in the position of (1), but without investing the work@ariadne@treehouse.systems

@ariadne
What does CLA mean/stand for please. I suspect it has to do with copyright assignment, but you are using it differently.

@nikatjef
@IndigoPRNG
CLA stands for “Contributer License Agreement”.

Note that while CLAs are not inherently about copyright assignment (handing off all your rights to someone else), although saying CLA without further clarification generally implies that.
@ariadne

@curiousicae @ariadne

The key thing here is 'large'. If the cost of rewriting the outside contributions is less than the value of taking the thing fully proprietary, then you have a commercial incentive to do it.

But it's the copyleft bit that provides a strong incentive, because that's the thing that means that the copyright owner has significantly more rights and can use the code in more places than anyone else.

@david_chisnall
Yes, but under current copyright law that's the best you can do, unless you enter legally bind yourself with a disclosure contract like Trolltech (now Qt Company) did with KDE e.V. over the Qt libraries. “We” should really get more companies to do that, yes.
@ariadne

@ariadne I’m not familiar with licenses, what does CLA mean?

@dngrs @ariadne Just remove the "Licensing" from the Contributors' License Agreement. A plain contract/ruleset forbidding LLMs will do.

You could bake that rule as part of the project's license, there might probably be already strict non commercial licenses that disallow LLMs, but you might need to write your own legal copy (which we arent qualified to give advice on)