Linus Torvalds: Any CLA is fundamentally broken
Quote:
More at Muktware... --jeremy |
From the same link:
Quote:
They have been doing it with almost everything, banks, media, oil, food, just to mention some areas; and now free software is in line it seens, all those small gaps with CLA will probably lead to a major problem, no wonder why is already been exploited. And some entities will sneakly paint a different picture about this. Ultimately this is what divide and conquer means. We have been warned many times. Quote:
|
My issue with Canonical's CLA is the section that ukiuki highlighted above. If I volunteered my time and effort to make, or fix, something only to later find someone or some corporation has gone and taken my work as their own or changed the terms of usage of that work I'd be unhappy about it. I translate various things and have provided scripts, and modified scripts provided by others, to help in translation (one of them was even posted here in LQ and LQ community members helped with it), if I signed it over to Canonical that would be a breach of trust to those that helped me with the script and something I would not do. Likewise I know of information provided on pages supported by Canonical (Ubuntu specific pages) that are language specific (Australian English). Who owns the rights to the technical details of my mother tongue? Certainly not Canonical yet their CLA if they chose to enforce it would forbid me or anyone else from using material that is located on one of their sites and I think that would be regardless of whether it is located anywhere else or not.
|
There always seems to be a lot of confusion about Canonical's CLA (I would guess mostly driven by ill-informed or outright malicious bloggers).
If someone contributes under Canonical's CLA he is not giving up his copyright to the code (the CLA is a license agreement, not a copyright assignment), so the same code can still be used in other projects if the author wishes to do that. All code contributed to a project using Canonical's CLA is licensed as GPL v3, so anyone can use it, can fork those projects, ... . The contributed code is protected by the GPL and can not be closed down. The real intent of Canonical's CLA is to give Canonical the right to dual license the code, they can release it to their partners under a different license. From a business point of view this makes sense, since Canonical is aiming at the mobile and embedded market, where the GPL, especially v3, is not appreciated by most companies. Dual licensing is something many projects do and it is even something the FSF deems to be an OK business model. You rarely see people complain about Digia, which has the exact same business model with Qt, it seems really to be more cool to bash Canonical instead. |
Tobi did you see the section ukiuki highlighted? How do you interpret it?
I interpret it as Canonical reserves the right to change the license on anything anyone contributes. I don't see a discussion about copyright here I see a discussion about licensing software that was initially distributed under one license but Canonical believes it can re-license under another agreement (even proprietary) simply because the contributor signed an agreement allowing them to do so. If Canonical does this do you, as the contributor, have the resources to argue something like this through the courts considering you signed an agreement with Canonical to allow them to do so? I'd love to see a test case for this something that sets the precedent in favour of the contributor even though they signed an agreement giving Canonical the right to change the license, if you have any links please share them so everyone can see what happened and how the legal system dealt with it. |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
That is what most people get wrong, the Canonical CLA is not about relicensing (this would need a copyright assignment), but about dual-licensing. The fun facr, what most people don't get or don't know, the FSF CLA is one of those that make possible what you describe, since it involves copyright assignment. Yes, when you contribute to an official GNU project you give up your copyright and the FSF can relicense to anything they want. I recommend to actually read Canonical's CLA and not to rely on interpretations of some bloggers: http://www.canonical.com/static/file...-CLA-ANY-I.pdf |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I see they have changed their CLA since I last looked at Ubuntu. However, that does not change much at all. If you read sections 2.3 and 2.4 they say they can change the license (you say they can't but they say they can, and from your words it also appears they can do this regardless of what license is already on the contribution) and then they say that you agree to waive and not assert moral rights against them etc either direct or indirect. You see Tobi the agreement is not only in the sections you quoted, you must take the entire thing in its full context. Sure they say they will do such and such, and they make it appear as though it is in good will, but you also agree to give them full rights (while allegedly keeping your own as well) to do whatever they want to which includes re-licensing (adding another license is re-licensing). Again, I'd like to see a test case where a precedent is set that favours the contributor and not a company like Canonical. If you have evidence of any such case (and I'm not talking phone companies but rather the little man without millions of dollars and a big legal section in the company to back him up) I'd be interested in reading it. |
Any contribution made to Canonical projects is GPL v3, you agree to use that license when submitting your contribution. That is the license mentioned in the second part of section 2.3:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
I think a lawyer is needed to decipher this. If they can re-license code without the owner's permission, then I think it would be illegal.
|
Tobi what legal school did you study through?
What is your understanding of giving up moral rights? Once you give up moral rights to something you have no claim to it as a part of that agreement. Yes you can continue with your own material but what you agree to give to them, and give up your moral rights to, they can do anything they want with. So what they use in their projects you have no claim to but you have claim to the same material if you use it in your own projects. Your explanation of someone placing a GPL license on their contribution is debatable. If I write something that can be useful to an organisation and choose a license other than the GPL3 and then I agree to Canonical's CLA it is Canonical saying the GPL license will be placed on this contribution. They wrote the CLA not the contributor it is therefore Canonical placing the GPL3 on the contribution even though the contributor may have a different license on it. It is Canonical, with the authors permission, re-licensing the contribution. Again, are you aware of any test cases that set a precedent in support of a contributor in a claim against Canonical? |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Only that this isn't the case. As the original author you can submit your code under the license necessary for that project, but you can license it to other projects, including your own ones, under any license you want. So again, no relicensing is happening, you can just dual license, there is no need to remove the original license. With signing the CLA you give Canonical exactly the same permission to dual license code, but only under the condition that your code always remains available under GPL v3, otherwise they loose the right to dual-license. Again, no relicensing is happening, since the original license is not removed. If that is a thing you can live with or not has nothing at all to do with the legal implications of the CLA, that is something that you have to decide for yourself, in the same way as you have to decide if it has moral implications for you to contribute to BSD or MIT licensed projects, where also a third party can use the code in proprietary software without contributing back. My comments were only aimed at the legal component that so many people get wrong (intentionally or not): No relicensing is happening, your code always stays open and can't be closed down by Canonical. |
I found this very interesting, not directly related to the topic but close enough in terms of abuse, very interesting information!
Regards |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Again, are you aware of any test cases that set a precedent in support of a contributor in a claim against Canonical? So far it seems you are not and that is why you ignore this and are just going on your beliefs (which is fair enough). |
Quote:
Quote:
As I understand it, moral rights are such things like Apple uses ("It is not allowed to use this software for production of weapons of mass distruction"). Those are invalid under GPL anyways, which you have to use to submit to Canonical. If you don't like that then just don't contribute to Canonical. They are not forcing you to anything, so how again can that be morally wrong? I just don't get it. Quote:
Quote:
1. Relicensing means that you have to remove the old license. This is not mandatory to submit something under a different license, you can simply dual-license. 2. Canonical is not placing the GPL v3 on your code, you do it. To be able to submit to Canonical the code has to be already GPL v3, they are not changing a little bit of the license. If you don't like your code to be GPL licensed just don't submit it. Quote:
Quote:
It is a conditional statement: Code:
if (original code remains GPL) Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
As for "if you don't like it just don't contribute" that is exactly what this is about. I don't like it, I don't contribute, I stated as much in my first post on this matter. It would be nice of you to respect that choice. Quote:
Quote:
2. Canonical is by virtue of the CLA, if you agree to their terms you allow them to place that license on your work in order for it to be accepted. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
We were asked for opinions, I gave mine and have explained it, in some areas more than once, and have not ignored any aspect of the "Harmony" agreement. You have explained yours, I respect your right to it I have never called you malicious or ill informed unlike you who believe others are malicious. However you chose to ignore and then insinuate a part of the agreement that is, in my point of view, a big problem has nothing to do with the discussion. You linked to the agreement, you recommended people read it, you then chose to ignore a section of it and only decided to discuss it after it was pointed out that you haven't even read the full agreement. |
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:16 PM. |