> I avoid contributing to (or even using) projects with a Contributor License Agreement.

That's a pretty tough thing to do. Most (all?) Apache projects require a CLA, as does Go, Java, Mysql, Cassandra... It's pretty standard for any project that is both managed by a corporation and accepts third-party contributions.

EDIT: removed Postgres. Thanks, 'anarazel!

~~You got me on Postgres. Don't use the others.~~

Edit: another post states that Postgres doesn't require a CLA for contributors. So I don't use any software requiring a CLA.

Postgres doesn't have a CLA.

All of those projects also have alternatives that don't require a CLA. The solution is to avoid projects by bureaucratic corporations.

Why? Aside from having to click a button saying that you agree to the CLA, how does it affect you in any way?

CLAs aren't about making a project more bureaucratic, they're about transferring the rights over the code you're contributing from you to the project, so that there's no dispute over who the code belongs to.

I don't like the idea of handing over my contributions to another party under their terms. Either release software under a common open source license (BSD, MIT) or not. Don't add additional terms with some custom license that certainly wouldn't help me.

Another aspect of a CLA is the ability for a company to cover themselves legally.

Say I work at MegaCorp (they make heavy use of Go in some backend systems), and didn't bother making sure I had permission to contribute on MegaCorp time (and thus, contribute MegaCorp IP). I make some PRs to Go which improve the Go garbage collector, which Google happily accepts. These changes help Google and they could help MegaCorp if some of their projects use Go. Hooray!

Somewhere down the line, someone at MegaCorp notices that I've been contributing to Go's garbage collector on MegaCorp time without permission. I may or may not be fired. However, Google has now benefited from what is legally MegaCorp IP without the permission of MegaCorp. If this is in the USA, there's a decent chance that MegaCorp tries to sue Google. That's a headache that I'm sure nobody at Google would want to deal with.

If there was a CLA which I had to sign, saying that I had permission to contribute MegaCorp IP, Google has a document clearly saying that I had permission to contribute MegaCorp IP. This is a far better situation for Google than if they had no such document.

I don't understand. Whether you had the document or not, MegaCorp's lack of permission remains the same.

And Google's benefit from your MegaCorp contributions remains the same. MegaCorp legal recourses remain the same.

The situation is exactly the same.

No, because before Google was guilty of using MegaCorp IP, but now, you're guilty of telling them they could, so you are responsible now, not Google.

I'd like to hear that opinion from a lawyer. While it makes sense, the reality of the law doesn't always make sense.

(1) Either way you're guilty.

(2) Either way Google competitor has damages on MegaCorp.

> Either release software under a common open source license (BSD, MIT) or not

afaik, CLAs and "open source licenses" are different things with different purposes. as such, you can have both a CLA and be BSD.

> you can have both a CLA and be BSD

Not the case - they can claim it is so, but a BSD license with extra clauses is not a BSD license.

A CLA generally does not add clauses to the license. It generally contains extra rules contributors have to follow to contribute to the "main" codebase, but these are unrelated to the license. If a project has a CLA, you still have the full rights the license grants you, and you can do everything that license allows you to do without signing the CLA. The CLA only governs contributions to upstream, and I'm not aware of any open-source license that says anything about those.

As an example, many projects demand copyright assignment through a CLA from contributors, which does not add any restrictions to your use of the project allowed through the BSD license. You still can modify, redistribute, ... the source and products build on it as you wish, the CLA is only relevant if you ask the upstream project to merge some of your changes. The BSD license says nothing about how the upstream project has to accept your proposed changes.

I agree that CLAs are a bit of a hassle, but it makes things much saner for licensors and licensees alike. One high profile project that doesn't use them is the linux kernel. It's mostly only the uniformity of mind among contributors that keeps things on course. Can you imagine the consequences if one or more developers decided that they wanted to change the terms for their contributions?

--- scratch that! Ok, I'm a bit out of date: linux's DCO solves this problem without requiring a DCA. But think of other projects that want to have long term growth and what challenges could arise in the face of changing attitudes over time.